164 SALSOLACE^. 



base and running rootstocks, 3^8 in. high, angular : lowest leaves 

 broadly ovate or oblong, 2 — 3 lines long, the others linear, semiterete, 

 1^ — 1 in. long, acuminate, cuspidate : bracts much like the leaves but 

 shorter, about twice the length of the flowers : fl. 1 — 3 in each axil, the 

 lateral ones often pedicellate, 2 — 3-bracted, the central one often bract- 

 less : sepals 1 line long, ovate, acutish, rather rigid, exceeding the 

 stamens and style : seed % liii® broad, black and shining. — In alkaline 

 lowlands of the interior, from near Sacramento, Pickering, and Lathrop, 

 Greene, southward and eastward. 



Order XXV. SALSOLACE/C. 



Linnseus, Classes Plantarum, 507 (1738). Blil.a, Adans. Fam. ii. 258 

 (1763). Alriplices, Juss. Gen. '83 (1789). Chenopodex, Vent. Tabl. ii. 

 253 (1799). Chenopodiacex, Lindl. Intr. 2d ed. 2Q8 (1836). 



Herbs or shrubs, often succulent, glabrous, pubescent, mealy or scurfy, 

 sometimes leafless. Flowers clustered, apetalous. Perianth of a solitary 

 bract-like sepal, or of 2 which are distinct and valvate or more or less 

 united, or of five distinct or united at base and calyx-like, never scarious. 

 Stamens as many as the sepals and opposite to them, or fewer ; anthers 

 2-celled. Ovary 1-celled, 1-ovuled, becoming an utricle or achene enclosed 

 in the persistent perianth. Embryo annular or spiral ; albumen mealy 

 or wanting. — A rather large order, closely connecting Amarantaceje and 

 Portulacese, hardly separable from the former except by vegetative 

 characters ; containing many garden and field pests (goosefoot, pig 

 weed) and as many useful plants like the beet, spinach, orach, etc. 

 Several shrubby species of West American desert plains are valued 

 forage plants, and the herbaceous kinds abound along the seaboard, in 

 salt marshes, or on subsaline plains of the interior. 



Hints of the Genera. 



Stems nearly or quite leafless, stout, fleshy, cylindrical, articulated, - - - 8 

 Stems leafy ; 



Leaves fleshy, terete, ----------- 9 



" plane, fleshy or membranaceous; 



Perianth of 1 bract-like sepal, ------ 3 



" campanulate, 8— 5-toothed, ----- 2 



of fertile fl. 5-cleft or -divided, - - - 1, 4 

 " of fertile fl. of 2 more or less united bracts, 5, 6, 7 



1. CHENOPODIUM, Tabernaemontanus (Goosefoot. Pig weed). 

 Herbs with alternate petiolate mostly angular foliage. Flowers small, 

 greenish, sessile, clustered in axillary or terminal spikes or cymes, perfect, 

 or pistillate only, bractless. Perianth herbaceous, 3— 5-parted ; lobes 

 imbricate, often carinate or crested, persistent and more or less covering 

 the fruit, remaining green and herbaceous or becoming colored and 

 fleshy. Stamens 5 or fewer. Styles, 2, 3 or 4, slender. Pericarp 



