54 SALSOLACEJE. 



matic : leaves thin, oblong, narrowed at base, obtuse, sinuate-serrate or 

 sometimes remotely dentate, 1 in. longer less: inflorescence a terminal 

 leafless panicle of dense but slender spikes : sepals not carinate, completely 

 enclosing the fruit: seed smooth and shining, obtusely margined. 



5. C. AMBBOSOIDES, L. Annual, erect or ascending, 23 ft. high, 

 deep green, glabrous or slightly scabrous, the foliage occasionally 

 puberulent: leaves oblong, attenuate at each end, . acutish, remotely 

 sinuate-toothed or entire, the uppermost and floral linear-lanceolate: 

 inflorescence loosely spicate and leafy: fruiting perianth completely 

 closed: seed smooth and shining, obtusely margined. 



6. O. MULTIFIDUM, L. Prostrate, branching and leafy, aromatic: 

 leaves pinnatifid into narrow lobes; flowers glomerate in the axils: 

 perianth deeply campanulate, 3 5- toothed, at length saccate and con- 

 tracted over the fruit and reticulate-nerved: pericarp whitish and with 

 scattered glandular dots: seed subrostellate, obtusely margined, dark 

 brown, minutely punctate-rugose. Common in San Francisco. 



* * * Glabrous or slightly mealy; seed vertical more or less exstrted. 



7. C. Califoruicnm, Wats. Stems from a long fusiform perennial root, 

 stout, decumbent, mostly simple, 1 3 ft. high; the young parts a little 

 mealy: leaves broadly triangular-hastate, 23 in. long, truncate or with 

 sinuses at base, acuminate, sharply, unequally, and often deeply sinuate- 

 dentate: fl. in dense clusters in a long simple terminal spike: perianth 

 campanulate, rather deeply 5-toothed, enfolding the utricle only loosely: 

 pericarp persistent: seed somewhat compressed, % 1 line broad. 

 Common. 



8. C. rubrum, L. Annual, stout and rather fleshy, erect with 

 ascending branches, ^ 1 ft. high: leaves ovate to oblong-lanceolate, 

 1 in. long, obtuse, petiolate, remotely and rather coarsely dentate, 

 glabrous and green above, paler and mealy beneath: fl. in axillary 

 spiked clusters : perianth small, with rounded lobes, not quite concealing 

 the vertical, or as often horizontal utricle. In the Suisun marshes on 

 elevated and dry ground; apparently indigenous, though possibly intro- 

 duced from Europe, where it is a common weed. 



2. BETA, Columna (BEET). Bather coarse glabrous biennials, with 

 alternate leaves, the radical large and long-petioled, the floral reduced 

 and sessile. Flowers fascicled in the axils and spicate-congested along 

 the paniculate branches, connate at base, perfect. Sepals 5, inserted on 

 the margins of a concave receptacle, imbricate. Stamens 5, opposite the 

 sepals, filaments subulate. Ovary partly inferior and encircled by a 

 disk-like margin of the receptacle: style short, the 2 or 3 branches 

 stigmatose on the inside. Fruit partly adnate to the receptacle, and 

 enclosed by the thicked and somewhat fleshy sepals. 



