SALSOLACE^, 169 



•or oval : inflorescence 1—3 ft. long. Escaped from gardens to moist 

 lands bordering the salt marshes, where it is becoming a common weed 

 in some places. ' 



5. ATRIPLEX, PJiny (Orache.) Herbs or shrubs, mealy or scurfy, 

 monoecious or dicecious; inflorescence axillary and glomerate, or terminal 

 and spicate or pani<?led. Staminate perianth bractless, 3 — 5-parted, 

 enclosing as many stamens. Pistillate H. bibracteate, without perianth 

 •or rarely ^\'ith 2 — 4 distinct hyaline sepals ; the bracts erect, appressed, 

 ■distinct or more or less united, their margins often becoming dilated, the 

 surface sometimes in age thickened indurated and muricate. Fruit 

 ■compressed, utricular. Seed vertical. Embryo annular, around copious 

 albumen. — A large and perplexing genus of plants in eastern N. America; 

 the first group not natxirally separable from Chenopodmm; but some of 

 the species so different from others in fruit' as to almost demand the 

 reinstatement of several genera which have latterly been rejected, 

 * Moncecious annuals, somemhat succuhnl and mealy; brads distinct or 

 nearly so, ocate-ohlong to broadly triangular or hastate. 



1. A. hastata, Linn, var. oppositifolia, Moq. DC. Prodr. xiii^. 95 

 (1849^ : A opposHifolia, DC. Kapp. i. 12 (1808). Bather slender, with 

 ■divaricate and somewhat decumbent branches 2 — 3 ft. long, or stouter 

 and erect with ascending branches ; herbage mealy, not very succiilent : 

 leaves triangular-hastate or deltoid, mostly entire, all the lower opposite : 

 flower-clusters small, spicate : bracts small, triangular, entire or denticu- 

 late ^4 in. long : seed 1 line long, dark colored. — Common along the 

 borders of brackish marshes at Petaluma, and elsewhere to the westward 

 of San Francisco Bay. 



2. A. patnla, Linn. Sp. PI. ii, 1053 (1753). Stout and succulent, 

 mostly erect, 1 ft. high, with few ascending branches ; herbage deep 

 ■green, only the growing parts somewhat mealy : lowest leaves often 

 ■opposite, broadly lanceolate, sometimes with hastate base : inflorescence 

 more or less leafy at base : bracts rhombic-ovate, thick and subcori- 

 aceous, often }^ in. long. — Very common in salt marshes and near beaches. 



3. A. phylloste^ia, Wats. Proc. Am, Acad. ix. 108 (1879) ; Torr. Bot, 

 King. Exp. 291 (1871), under Obi one. Erect, with short ascending 

 branches, 6 — 18 in. high, pale and mealy-scurfy : leaves alternate, 

 rhombic-ovate or -lanceolate, acuminate, with salient narrow hastate 

 lobes toward the base, otherwise entire, 1 in. long : almost dioecious ; fl. 

 mostly axillary : staminate calyx 5-parted : bracts linear-lanceolate or 

 broader, aciite or acuminate, }£ — 3^ in. long, foliaceous, the sides 

 indurated in fruit, 3-nerved, the lateral nerves often bituberculate : seed 

 brownish, ^g line broad ; radicle nearly superior, — In subsaline soil near 

 Lathrop, and southward. 



