CIlENOrODIACEiE. 7 



The extremes of varieties a and 3 are very unlike in habit, but it is 

 impossible to draw any distinct line between them. 



Common Marsh Samphire. 



French, Salicornc herhacee. German, Krautartiges GlasscJimah. 

 This plant was formerly collected in large quantities from the muddy flats near the 

 coast, where it generally grows, and burnt for barilla ; being first dried in the sun, 

 and then made up into small heaps over holes, which received the soda ash, in a 

 molted state, as it ran from the burning masses. With many other plants of the order 

 it is still used fo^' this purpose in the countries around the Mediterranean ; but since 

 the introduction of Le Blanc's process for obtaining soda from common salt, the 

 importance of barilla as an article of commerce has much diminished. It is also used 

 as a pickle, and has somewhat the flavour of the Rock-samphire. 



SPECIES IL-SALICORNIA RADICAKS. Sm, 

 Plate MCLXXXIII. 



S. herbacea, var. BentJi. Handbk. Brit. Fl. ed. ii. p. 386, 

 S. fruticosa, Sm. Engl. Bot. ed. i. No. 2467 (non Linn.). 



Root perennial. Stem woody, procumbent, sending up erect her- 

 baceous branches, which are usually simple, or with short secondary 

 branches ; internodes of the branches subcylindrical, scarcely thickened 

 upwards, slightly compressed. Spikes cylindrical in flower, fusiform- 

 or clavate-cylindrical in fruit. Flowers in threes, immersed in the 

 fleshy spike towards the base on each side of each internode, the 3 

 flowers arranged in an obtuse-angled triangle. Seed with an herba- 

 ceous hairy testa. Perianth slightly winged along the cleft in fruit. 

 Plant olive green, usually tinged with fawn colour. 



In muddy and shingly salt marshes by tidal rivers. Local, and 

 confined to the south-east of England. In Dorset, Hants, Sussex, 

 Kent, Essex, and Norfolk. 



Enojland. Shrub. Autumn. 



Stem woody, procumbent, from the thickness of a crow-quill to that 

 of a man's little finger, and 6 inches to 2 feet long, sending up very 

 numerous rather slender branches furnished with short lateral branch- 

 lets, or nearly entii'e. In other respects this plant comes very near 

 S. herbacea, but the two grow together, so the difi'erence cannot be 

 the effect of situation; and it is certainly not from luxuriance, as 

 suggested by Mr. Bentham, as the first year's plants of S. radicans 

 are consideraljly smaller, or at least with the branches much more 

 slender, than in S. herbacea of the same age. S. radicans, however, 

 never flowers the first season, and in the second it does not commence 

 flowering till nearly a month after S. herbacea. The spikes are gene- 

 rally shorter and considerably thicker towards the apex, and the plant 



