CHENOPODIACE^. 5 



3 inches to 1 foot long, marked with narrow pale stripes on a green 

 ground; sometimes nearly erect, and 18 inches to 2 feet high, with 

 flexuous branches. Leaves numerous, i to 1^ inch long, slightly 

 recurved, dilated and membranous at the base, but not clasping more 

 than one-third of the stem, the tips terminating in a stiff short spine; 

 upper leaves shorter and broader. Each flower with 2 bracts resembling 

 the leaf in the axil of which it is situated, but rather shorter. Pe- 

 rianth segments at first erect, lanceolate, scarious, becoming enlarged 

 and cartilaginous and connivent in fruit, when it is furnished about 

 the middle with a transverse scarious wing spreading horizontally and 

 varying much in breadth. Stamens 5 ; anthers pale yellow. Style 2- 

 or 3-cleft, with the branches stigmatiferous. Fruit depressed-tur- 

 bmate, crowned by the base of the style, and concealed by the con- 

 nivent perianth segments. Seed horizontal, with a brown membranous 

 testa which adheres to the thin pericarp; embryo green. Plant green, 

 slightly glaucous, succulent, more or less hairy in all the British 

 specimens I have seen. 



Prickly Saltwort. 



French, Sonde epmeuse. German, Gemeines Salzh-aut. 



This plant was at one time highly valued on account of the quantity of soda it 

 contains, and was collected on the seashore, and burned for the use of soap manu- 

 facturers. The ashes are known by the name of barilla. Less cumbrous methods of 

 obtaining soda are now more frequently employed. 



Tribe II.— SALTCORNE^. 



Flowers all alike, and commonly all perfect. Seeds sparingly albu- 

 minous ; embryo variously placed, conduplicate. 



Herbs with jointed stems, leafless, or with fleshy leaves. Flowers in 

 spikes, buried in excavations of the rachis, or in the axils of the leaves. 



GENUS IIL^S ALICORNIA. Toumef. 



Flowers perfect or polygamous, buried in excavations in the axis, 

 3 arranged in a triangle on each side at the base of the internodes. 

 Calyx free from the ovary, fleshy, compressed, truncate or 3 to 4-toothed 

 at the apex. Stamens 1 or 2. Styles 2, included in the perianth. 

 Fruit compressed, membranous, enveloped in the closed calyx, which 

 is wingless, or with a faint transverse wing at the top. Seed vertical, 

 with a single membranous testa or a double one of which the outer layer 

 is crustaceous ; embryo variously placed with respect to the albumen. 



Leafless herbs or undershrubs -svith jointed succulent stems. Spikes 

 thickened in fruit. 



The name of this genus of plants is derived from the words sal, salt, and cornu, a 

 horn, from its nature and the shape of its stems. 



