806 CHENOPODIACE^E. (GOOSEFOOT FAMILY.) 



ORDER 65. CHENOPODIACE./E. (GOOSEFOOT FAMILY.) 



Herbs or shrubs, often succulent or scurfy, usually with simple and 

 alternate leaves, without stipules ; the small and sessile commonly clus- 

 tered flowers either naked or with herbaceous (not scarious) bracts, a 

 perianth of 5 or fewer usually herbaceous and persistent sepals ; stamens 

 as many as the sepals and opposite, distinct, with 2-celled anthers; 

 ovary ] -celled, an akene or utricle in fruit. Flowers perfect or unisexual. 

 Bracts often enclosing the fruit. Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. ix. 82. 



1. Flowers perfect, without bracts ; the perianth persistent : seed free, mostly with 



crustaceous testa. 

 * Seeds horizontal (sometimes vertical in Chenopodium). 



1. Koctiia. Perianth 5-cleft, at length transversely winged, enclosing the fruit. Testa 



membranous. Perennial, with terete leaves and axillary flowers. 



2. Cycloloma. Perianth 5-cleft, in fruit surrounded by a horizontal continuous mem- 



branaceous wing. Annual, much-branched, with sinuate-toothed petioled leaves and 

 small panicled clusters of sessile flowers. 



3. Chenopodium. Perianth usually 5-cleft or -parted, nearly covering the fruit. Sta- 



mens 5, 1, or none. Annuals, mostly mealy or glandular, with clustered or solitary 

 axillary or terminal flowers. Seeds often vertical. 



* * Seeds vertical. 



4. Monolepis. Sepal 1, bract-like. Stamen 1. Fruit naked. Low annuals ; flowers 



densely clustered in the axils. 



2. Flowers monoecious or dioecious ; the staminate with 3 to 5-cleft perianth ; the pis- 

 tillate without perianth, enclosed in a pair of more or less united bracts : seed free, 

 vertical. 



* Bracts compressed : testa mostly coriaceous. 



5. Atriplex. Fruiting bracts with margins often dilated and sides often muricate. Radi- 



cle from inferior to superior. 



* * Bracts obcompressed, completely united, not muricate : testa membranous. 



6. Grayia. Pericarp naked, very entire, orbicular, flattened, wing-margined. Radicle 



inferior. Flowers dioecious. Shrubby, frequently spinescent, nearly glabrous. 



7. Suckleya. Pericarp naked, subhastate, with crested margins and 2- toothed apex. 



Radicle superior. Flowers monoecious. 



8. Eurotia. Pericarp conical, densely hairy, turgid, not winged, with a bifid apex. Radi- 



cle inferior. Flowers dioecious. Low and shrubby, white-tomentose. 



3. Flowers perfect, without bracts : sepals 1 to 3, hyaline, marcescent : pericarp adhe- 

 rent to the vertical seed. ( 



9. Corispermum. Fruit compressed-elliptic, acutely margined, not muricate. Flowers 



spicate. Low annual. 



4. Flowers mostly perfect, immersed by threes in the depressions of a close cylindrical 

 spike : seeds vertical : fleshy saline plants, with jointed stems and scale-like leaves. 



10. Salicornia. Flower-clusters decussately opposite. Perianth saccate, becoming 



spongy. Branches opposite. 



5. Embryo spiral (annular in all other sections) : leaves fleshy, terete : steins not articu- 

 lated. 



11. Sarcobatus. Flowers unisexual; the staminate in aments, without perianth; the 



pistillate axillary, solitary, with saccate perianth. Fruit transversely winged. Saline 

 shrub, somewhat spinescent. 



12. Suaeda. Flowers perfect, axillary. Perianth 5-cleft or -pared. Saline herbs, or 



woody at base. 



