286 



EMPETRACE.E. 



[Diclinous Exogens. 



BATii)EJE.—(3Iartms Conspectus, No. 70, p. 13; Meisner, Gen. p. 349.) Shrubs inhabiting salt 

 marshes, with opposite succulent leaves, having no stipules. Flowers ^ ? in spikes. S Scales of 

 cone 1-flowered, closely imbricated. Calyx a scale rolled up with its back next the axis, and the edges 

 united, so as to form an oblique membranous cup. 

 Stamens 4, longer than the calyx, 2-celled, opening 

 lengthwise; with flattened filaments. ? Flowers 

 absolutely naked ? or composed of succulent scales 

 arranged in a short 4-rowed cone, and completely 

 united to the back of the ovaries. Calyx 0. Ovary 

 6-6-celled, buried in the substance of the axis ; stigma 

 sessile, roundish ; ovnales solitary, erect. Fruit succu- 

 lent ; otherwise unknovvn. 



Such appears to be the structure of a small West 

 Indian plant, which has but little attracted the notice 

 of systematical writers, and whose fruit is still un- 

 kno\^^l. The only point which I am doubtful about is 

 the presence or absence of scales to the female flowers ; 

 there is an external appearance of them : but I am 

 not able to separate them from the ovary within their 

 axil. It would be premature to off"er any observations 

 upon the affinity of the plant until the structure of 

 the ovTiles and seeds shall have been ascertained. For 

 the present it must be sufficient to remark, that what Fig. CXCVIII. 



writers call the seeds of Batis, are certainly the sepa- 

 rable cells of a succulent ovai-j', the ov-ules of which are abortive ; and it seems probable that this abortion 

 is so common as to render the' real seeds difficult to discover. Martins places the plant between Podos- 

 temacese and Salicacese : Meisner following Urticaceae ; Endlicher among his unsettled genera, without 

 a remark. In the last edition of the present work this genus was absolutely placed among the Order of 

 Nettleworts, with the remark that ' ' Batis has a common urticaceous fruit, and it agrees with many genera 

 of the Order in its embryo having the radicle turned dovvn upon the cotyledons." This remark applied to 

 the Batis aurantiaca of Wallich , which I had inadvertently assumed to belong to the genus in which 

 that learned Botanist had placed it. I now find, however, that the shrubs called Batis by Roxburgh 

 and AVallich belong to a totally different genus, allied to Morus, and therefore the remark now quoted 

 falls to the ground. For the present, until we know something more of this plant it may be stationed in 

 the Euphorbial Alliance, with which its diclinous flowers and compound free ovary seem to associate it. 

 It may even belong to the Order of Crowberries. 



The salt marshes of the West Indies abound in this plant, which is sometimes gathered for the purpose 

 of mixing with West Indian pickles. Its ashes yield barilla in abundance. 



GENUS. 

 Batis, P. Br. 



Numbers. Gen. 1. Sp. 2 ? (There is in Sir W. Hooker's Herbarium, 

 state for examination, but which may be a second species of Batis). 



Texan plant in too young a 



Fig. CXCVIII. — Batis maritima. 1. a ? cone; 2. an ideal section of it through a b ; S. a, S 

 with its bract and stamens ; 4. the same without either. 



