94 CHENOPODIACEiE 



other species when in fruit. "When planted in the garden it requires to l)e 

 placed in a gravelly soil. Its leaves make a good pickle. 



The different species of Atriplex, like many of our seaside plants, are 

 remarkable for the white or bluish mealy powder which covers them, so that 

 they may be completely immersed in water without being wetted. The 

 Halimus Orach e, or Sea Purslane, so common in the hedges of Southern 

 Europe, has a still more mealy surface than this, and is a larger shrub. 

 Mr. Backhouse tells us that this plant is, in Australia, commonly called 

 Botany Bay Greens, from having been very useful some years since, during a 

 season of scarcity in that land. Some writers include our Shrubby Purslane 

 and the following species in a distinct genus, called Obione. 



2. Stalked Sea Orache (A. pedunntldta). — Stem herbaceous, zigzag, 

 branched ; leaves inversely egg-shaped, entire, narrowed below, upper leaves 

 narrower ; fruiting perianth long-stalked, l^ell-shaped, 2-lobed, with a small 

 intermediate tooth ; annual. The Oraches are generally difficult of distinction, 

 and botanists difier as to their arrangement into species, but the Stalked Sea 

 Orache is readily distinguished by its long flower-stalks, and the turned-back 

 lobes of the perianth. It varies much in size, and is dwarf or luxuriant 

 according to the degree of moisture in the soil. It grows on muddy shores 

 and salt marshes in the east and south-east of England, and is found in 

 several parts of Kent, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and other counties, but 

 is a rare plant. 



3. Frosted Sea Orache {A. laciindta). — Stem herbaceous, spreading, 

 prostrate ; leaves triangular, somewhat rhomboid, cut, mealy beneath ; spike 

 of sterile flowers dense, leafless ; fertile flowers axillary ; perianth of the 

 fruit rhomboid, 3-lobed, the back 3-ribbed, and often tubercled ; seeds rough, 

 opaque ; animal. This plant, which is the A. farinosa or A. arenaria of some 

 botanists, is not unfrequent on the seashore, and is characterized by its bufi 

 stem. It is a very silvery plant, every part of it being powdered with white. 

 The flowers appear in July and August, and the perianth of the fruit is very 

 large and broad. 



4. Spreading Halberd-leaved Orache {A. pdtula). — Stem herba- 

 ceous, erect, or spreading; lower leaves triangular, halberd-shaped, with two 

 horizontally-spreading lobes, irregularly toothed, the upper ones nearly 

 entire ; perianth of the fruit toothed or entire at the margin, slightly tubercled 

 on the back ; spikes nearly simple, interrupted ; seeds mostly dark-brown, 

 wrinkled ; annual. This is a common species on cultivated and waste lands, 

 and often -sery abundant on salt marshes. It has straggling furrowed 

 branches, and its flowers, which appear from midsummer to autumn, are in 

 small clusters, on long, interrupted, and axillary spikes, and often much 

 tinged with red. The main stem is usually erect, and the others prostrate. 

 The perianth of the fruit is variable, there being two kinds in each spike. 

 The authors of the "British Flora" remark, "that those below are larger, 

 with a dark brown wrinkled seed ; those towards the extremity smaller, 

 with a black, shining, perfectly smooth seed." This species is by Sir J. E. 

 Smith, Mr. Babington, and others, termed A. hasfata. 



5. Spreading Fiuited Orache {A. rdsea). — Stem spreading, procum- 

 bent or ascending, with spreading branches ; leaves mealy, egg-shaped, tri- 



