A. CALIFORNICA. 257 



3. ATRIPLEX CALIFORNICA Moquin, in DeCandolIe, Prodr. 13»:98, 1849. Plate 39. 



Prostrate perennial herb (the only North American Atriplex with a fusiform taproot, 

 this slender, elongated, fleshy or spongious), the stems spreading to form tangled mats 

 or beds 1 to 2 dm. deep but up to 10 dm. or more across, the ultimate twigs erect or ascend- 

 ing; branches wiry, not angled, white-mealy, glabrate and then stramineous; leaves alter- 

 nate or the lower opposite, crowded, sessile, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, all much 

 narrowed to the base, acute at apex, 0.8 to 2 or rarely 3 cm. long, 0.2 to 0.4 cm. wide, 

 entire, comparatively thin, heavily coated with a gray tomentum but the general hue 

 often greenish, obscurely 1-nerved; flowers monoecious, the two kinds mixing in the leaf- 

 axils, the staminate also in approximate glomerules arranged in nearly naked terminal 

 spikes; perianth 4-cleft in the staminate flowers, wanting in the pistillate; fruiting bracts 

 sessile, compressed, separate nearly to the base, ovate, acute, 3 to 5 mm. long, 2.5 to 

 4 mm. broad, entire, the faces not appendaged, 1-nerved under the dense scurf; seed 2 

 mm. long, black; radicle inferior or sometimes lateral, never superior. 



Sandy coasts along the Pacific Ocean, from slightly north of San Francisco, California, 

 to Cedros Island, Lower California. Type locality, California. Collections, all in 

 California or Lower California: Bodega Point, Sonoma County, Eastwood 4802 (SF); 

 Point Reyes, Marin County, Davy 6764 (UC) ; Mare Island, San Francisco Bay, Septem- 

 ber 7, 1874, Greene (Or); West Berkeley, Michener and Bioletti 561a (US); Alameda 

 Marshes, September 17, 1898, Davy (UC); Pillar Point, San Mateo County, Baker 17 43 

 (Gr, SF, UC, US) ; Santa Cruz, April 15, 1897, Setchell (UC) ; near Point Pinos, Monterey 

 County, Heller 6746 (DS, UC, US); San Simeon, San Luis Obispo County, August, 

 1885, Brandegee (UC); Santa Maria, June, 1894, Alderson (UC); Surf, Santa Barbara 

 County, Elmer 4011 (NY, US); Carpenteria, Santa Barbara County, Hall 10953 (CI); 

 Santa Rosa Island, June, 1888, Brandegee (UC); San Miguel Island (according to Bran- 

 degee, Zoe 1:144, 1890); Santa Cruz Island, 1919, Swain (SF); Anacapa Island, 1901, 

 Hemphill (UC) ; Santa Catalina Island, rare, September, 1898, Trask (UC); San Nicholas 

 Island, April, 1901, Trask (Gr, NY); San Clemente Island, Mearns 4074 (DS, US); 

 Redondo, Los Angeles County, Braunton 267 (UC) ; La JoUa, San Diego County, Clem- 

 ents 56 (UC, US); Initial monument. United States-Mexico line, July 1, 1899, Bran- 

 degee (UC) ; South Coronado Island, Parish 8839 (DS, UC) ; Todos Santos Bay, Orcutt 

 1269 (Gr, US); San Quentin Bay, Palmer 718 (Gr, NY, US); El Rosario, March 21, 

 1889, Brandegee (UC); Cedros Island, April 30, 1885, Greene (US). 



RELATIONSHIPS. 



Atriplex calif ornica is not closely related to any other species, at least not to any known 

 in North America. It is primitive in its dioecious habit, inferior radicle, and the 

 absence of cohesion between the bracts. Furthermore, the pistil is much less reduced in 

 the staminate flowers than it is in the other species. Since no other exhibits this com- 

 bination of fundamental characters, it is almost certainly a derivative of some ancestral 

 stock not now here represented, and therefore belongs in a section or subgenus by itself. 

 If A. hortensis is taken as the most primitive Atriplex, then calif ornica represents an 

 advance through the complete suppression of the perianth, but without the develop- 

 ment of certain features which, have been attained on the hortensis line. The patida 

 and rosea groups are the only others in which the radicle is inferior, and these are far 

 removed from californica in almost all other characters. 



In appearance and in its ecologic relations this species is similar to A. decumbens, but 

 probably there is no direct phylogenetic coimection between them; the former differing 

 in its fusiform root, monoecious habit, mostly alternate leaves, thin and distinct fruiting 

 bracts, and inferior radicle, as well as in minor details. 



The radicle in A . californica is described as inferior, and this is strictly true as far as 

 most of the embryos are concerned. Occasionally, however, the radicle is carried 



