Atriplex. | CHENOPODIACES. 583 
ate. Perianth 3-5-partite; segments oblong or obovate, obtuse. 
Stamens 3-5. Female flowers 2-bracteate; bracts small at first, 
erect and appressed, distinct or more or less connate, enlarged in 
fruit and forming a variously shaped 2-valved covering to the 
utricle. Perianth wanting or very rarely of 2-5 hyaline segments. 
Ovary small; styles 2, filiform. ‘Utriclé entirely concealed within 
the base of the oreatly enlarged and thickened bracts ; pericarp 
thin, membranous. Seed compressed, vertical or very rarely 
horizontal; testa thin, crustaceous or coriaceous ; embryo annular, 
surrounding the copious mealy albumen. 
A large genus of about 120 species, widely spread through most parts of 
the globe, but chiefly along sea-coasts or in saline localities. One of the 
New Zealand species is a weed of probably northern origin, two others are 
found in Australia, the fourth is endemic. 
Erect branching shrub 1-4 ft. high, white with scurfy 
tomentum. Leaves 1-2in., ap entire. Fruiting- 
bracts 4 in., ovate-rhomboid di .. 1. A. cinerea. 
Erect or diffuse annual 1-2 ft. high, green or sparingly 
mealy. Leaves 1-3 in., lanceolate to. deltoid, entire or 
toothed. Fruiting-bracts 4-1 in., ovate-rhomboid .. 2. A. patula. 
Prostrate, much branched, 3-9 in. diam., white with scurfy 
tomentum. Leaves 4-4in., oblong to orbicular, entire 
or sinuate. Fruiting- bracts ovoid, very minute . 3. A. Buchanan. 
Prostrate, glabrous, fleshy, clothed with watery papillee, 
6-18 in. long. Leaves }-?in., oblong, entire or toothed. 
Fruiting- bracts urceolate. Utricle transverse to the 
bracts, not parallel ae iis ne .. 4. A. Billardieri. 
1. A. cinerea, Poir. Hncycl. Suppl. i. 471.—A small branching 
shrub 1-4 ft. high, clothed in all its parts with densely appressed 
white or grey scurfy tomentum ; stem woody; branches stout, angled, 
leafy. Leaves 1-2in. long, linear-oblong or lanceolate, obtuse, 
narrowed into a short petiole, quite entire, midrib prominent be- 
neath. Flowers dicecious or almost so; males in dense many- 
flowered simple or branched oblong spikes, which are often panicled 
at the ends of the branches. Females in small axillary clusters on 
the female plant, with occasionally 1 or 2 solitary in the axils of the 
upper leaves of the male plant. Fruiting-bracts greatly enlarged, 
about tin. long, broadly ovate-rhomboid, ‘subacute ; dise thick and 
corky, swollen over the utricle, smooth or rarely tuberculate ; 
margins thin. Utricle compressed, at the base of the bracts.— 
Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 214; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 232; Benth. Fl. 
Austral. v. 171. 
NortH Istanp: Wellington—Sandy shores of Palliser Bay, Colenso! 
SourH Istanp: Vicinity of Nelson, P. Lawson! Also recorded from Canter- 
bury, but I have seen no specimens from thence. 
A common plant in many parts of Australia and Tasmania, and very closely 
allied to the Huropean and African 4. Halimus, Linn. 
