CHENOPODIACEAE (GOOSEFOOT FAMILY) 163 



14a. Cheno podium rubrum humile (Hook.) Wats. Bot. Cal. 2: 48. 1880. 

 Smaller, prostrate or ascending: leaves ovate to lanceolate, often hastate, 

 much smaller, 1-3 cm. long, rarely toothed: flowers in axillary or somewhat 

 spicate clusters. Colorado to Nevada and Washington. 



2. BLITUM TOURN. 



Annual fleshy herbs, branched, often from the base. Leaves alternate, 

 hastate and petioled. Flowers small, crowded in axillary capitate clusters or 

 the uppermost subspicate. Calyx more or less fleshy in fruit and usually 

 highly colored. Stamens 1-5. Seed subglobose, vertical, shining; embryo a 

 complete ring. 



1. Blitum capitatum L. Sp. PI. 4. 1753. Glabrous, usually branched from 

 the base, the branches ascending, 2-5 dm. long: leaves from broadly triangu- 

 lar to lanceolate, usually sharply sinuate-toothed and more or less hastate, 

 cordate at base, 2-7 cm. long: flower-clusters large, often 12 mm. in diameter, 

 becoming bright red and by their appearance suggesting berries: seed com- 

 pressed, acutely margined, separable from the pericarp. Chenopodium cap- 

 itatum Wats. Bot. Cal. 2: 48. 1880. (B. hastatum Rydb. Bull. Torr. Bot. 

 Club 28: 273. 1901.) Frequent; moist mountain valleys. 



3. MONOLEPIS Schrad. 



Low annuals more or less branched, with alternate, entire, toothed, or lobed 

 leaves. Flowers polygamous; a single persistent sepal, 1 stamen and 2 styles. 

 The pericarp of the flat utricle thin and adherent to the vertical seed. 



1. Monolepis Nuttalliana (R. <fe S.) Engelm. PI. Upp. Miss. 206. 1861. 

 More or less mealy, branched from the base, 1-2 dm. high: loaves lanceolate- 

 hastate or sometimes narrowly spatulate, entire or sparingly sinuate-dentate, 

 cuneate or attenuate at base; lower petioles elongated: flower-clusters often 

 reddish: pericarp fleshy, becoming dry and minutely pitted; seed 1 mm. 

 broad, the margin acutish. M. chenopodioides Moq. Mostly in saline soil; 

 throughout our range and west to the coast. 



2. Monolepis pusilla Torr. in \Vats. King's Rep. 5: 289. 1871. Somewhat 

 mealy and often tinged with red, .slender and freely branched from the base, 

 5-15 cm. high: leaves oblong, obtuse, entire, scarcely petioled, 10-15 mm. 

 long: the small clusters 1-5-flowered: sepal obtuse: 'pericarp adherent and 

 minutely tuberculate; seed as in the preceding but only about one half as 

 large. Rare in our range; alkali basins Colorado and westward. 



4. CORISPERMUM A. Juss. BUGSEED 



Annuals, with alternate sessile linear 1 -nerved leaves. Flowers perfect, 

 solitary in the axils of reduced leaves on the spicate branches. Calyx reduced 

 to a single hyaline sepal, or none. Stamens 1-3 (rarely more), if more than 

 one unequal. The ovate ovary with 2 styles, b'ecoming oblong in fruit. Per- 

 icarp adherent to the vertical acute-margined seed. 



Fruit distinctly wing-margined. 



Bushy-branched throughout, floriferous above only . . . 1. C. nitidum. 

 Divaricately branched below, floriferous nearly to the base. 



The branches branched . . . . . . . . 2. C. marginale. 



The branches simple, spike-like ....... 3. C. imbricatum. 



Fruit wingless or nearly so. 



Plant glabrous 4. C. emarginatum. 



Plant somewhat villous . . . . . . . . 5. C. villosum. 



1. Corispermum nitidum Kit. ex. Schult. Oestr. Fl. Ed. 2. 1: 7. 1814. 

 Rather pale green, somewhat pubescent when young, slender-branched and 

 erect, 2-4 dm. high: leaves narrowly linear, 2-4 cm. long: spikes terminating 

 the slender branchlets, at first short and crowded, becoming longer and rather 



