Goosefoot Family 127 



5. ATBIPLEX L. 



Annual or perennial herbs or shrubby, often scurvy- 

 canescent or silvery, with alternate petioled or sessile 

 leaves, or some of them opposite. Flowers dioecious or 

 monoecious, small, green, in panicled spikes or in axil- 

 lary clusters. Staminate flowers bractless, consisting of 

 a 3-5-parted calyx and an equal number of stamens. 

 Pistillate flowers subtended by 2 or more united bract- 

 lets which enlarge in fruit, their margins entire or 

 toothed, often crested or winged. Calyx none. Stigmas 

 2. Utricle completely or partially enclosed by the fruit- 

 ing bractlets. Embryo annular. 



* Annuals; monoecious. 



1. A. patula L. Stems stout and succulent, erect, 2-6 dm. 

 high, with few ascending branches, herbage green, only the grow- 

 ing parts somewhat mealy ; leaves lanceolate or linear, entire or 

 coarsely toothed, sometimes hastate at base ; inflorescence more 

 or less leafy below, the clusters dense in spikes or panicles ; 

 bracts rhombic-ovate, thick and subcoriaceous, 8-12 mm. long, 

 entire or toothed, sometimes muricate. 



Frequent in saline places, especially toward the coast. 



2. A. expansa Wats. Annual, erect, much branched, 5-10 

 dm. high, closely and finely mealy-scurvy; leaves 2.5-7 cm. long, 

 broadly ovate or deltoid-ovate, irregularly and sharply sinuate- 

 toothed, the lower on stout petioles about 1 cm. long, and strong- 

 ly 3-nerved from the base, the upper reduced to sessile more or 

 less cordate floral bracts, as broad or broader than long ; flower 

 clusters more or less unisexual, those of the lower clusters mostly 

 staminate ; fruiting bracts sessile, clustered in the axils of the 

 leaves, orbicular, mostly 3-nerved, 4 mm. long, 5-6 mm. broad, 

 usually emarginate at the apex, the wing sharply toothed and 

 commonly bearing on one face a few irregular projections or 

 crests. 



Occasional in the Ballona Marshes. 



3. A. microcarpa Dietrich. Minutely and somewhat hoary 

 puberulent, the numerous reddish branches nearly glabrous ; stems 



