54 PLUMBAGINACE^. Slallce. 



Tribe I. STATICEiE. Calyx with open limb scai-ious, colored, strongly plicate. 

 Petals (long-unguiculate) and filiform styles distinct or united only below. 



1 . STATICE. Flowers cymose-spicate, secund. Styles wholly separate. Leaves flat. 



2. ARMERIA. Flowers capitate-glomerate. Styles mostly united at the very base, stig- 

 matose down the inner side. Leaves usually slender, with no distinction of blade and 

 petiole. 



Tribe II. PLUMBAGINE.3]. Calyx with erect teeth or lobes, and merely scarious 

 sinuses. Claws of the petals completely united into a tube. Style filiform, 5-cleft 

 at the apex; the slender lobes stigmatic within. 



3. PLUMBAGO. Calyx tubular, beset with glands. Corolla salver-forra with a long tube. 

 Stamens free from the corolla. Leafy-stemmed. 



1. STATICE, Tourn. Sea-Lavender, Maksh-Rosemary. (The ancient 

 Greek name, referring to the use as an astringent.) — Large genus in the Old 

 World, very sparingly represented in the New, in N. America only by the section 

 Limonium, in which the styles are stigmatose down the inside ; the 1-3-flowered 

 spikelets about 3-bracteate, i.e. 1-bracteate and 2-3-bracteolate ; leaves all radical 

 and 1 -ribbed. Fl. late summer. 



S. Limonitim, L. Root thick and woody, reddish: leaves thickish and rather fleshy, 

 oblong, spatulate or obovate-lanceolate, tapei'ing into a long or rather long petiole, obtuse 

 or retuse, and usually mucronate-tipped : scapes a foot or two high, loosely paniculate : 

 the branches spreading or rather erect : spikelets either crowded or soon rather scattered : 

 exterior or true bract ovate, herbaceous with scarious margin, much shorter and smaller 

 than the obtuse or retuse broadly scarious innermost bractlet: flowers lavender-color: 

 calyx hirsute on the angles below ; the lobes ovate-triangular and acute, and usually a 

 tooth in each sinus» — In various forms widely distributed over the world, mainly in salt 

 marshes of the coast. Ours are 



Var. Calif ornica. Leaves thinnish, retuse or obtuse and muticous : scape 2 feet or 

 more high : branches of the ample panicle densely floriferous at the summit, the spikelets 

 almost imbricated in short cymose spikes : innermost bract only twice the length of the 

 outermost. — Bot. Calif, i. 466. S. CaUfomica, Boiss. in DC. Prodr. xii. 463. — S. W. Texas 

 (C. Wright) to California. Resembles dense-flowered European S. Limonium. 



Var. Caroliniana, Gray (Man. 313). Inflorescence more paniculate than corym- 

 bose ; the 1-3-flowered spikelets soon separate or rather distant on the branching slender 

 spikes : bracts more unequal : calyx-lobes usually very acute or acuminate. — 5. Caro- 

 liniana, y\^&\t. Car. 118; Bigel. Med. Bot. ii. 51, t. 25; Boiss. I.e. S. Liinmmim,T:orv.Y\. 

 1. 329, & Fl. N. Y. ii. 17. — Labrador to Texas. The Southern plant thinner-leaved, with 

 ihucro often obsolete, branches of the spike filiform, and scattered spikelets small, 

 slender, and only 1-2-flowered : the northern forms with more fleshy veinless leaves, the 

 mucro conspicuous, flowers and 2-3-flowered spikelets larger, in closer less spreading 

 spikes; the smaller state nearly approaching the European var. Bahusiensis (S. Bahusiensis, 

 Fries). 

 S. Brasili^nsis, Boiss. Leaves oblong, rounded or retuse at the apex, thinnish : scape 

 (a foot or two high) and spreading branches of the panicle slender: spikelets 1-3-flowercd, 

 slender, more or less remote in the spreading spikes : bractlets very unequal : flowers white 

 or whitish: calyx perfectly glabrous; the lobes ovate and acutish. — DC. 1. c. — Coast of 

 N. Carolina to Florida. (Mex. ? Brazil to Patagonia.) 



Var. angustata. Leaves linear or nearly so, tipped with an awn-like mucro, fleshy : 

 spikelets sparse. — Pine Key, Florida, in a salt marsh, Blodgett. Leaves 2 or 3 inches long 

 besides the petiole, 2 or 3 lines wide. 



2. ARMi&RIA, AVilld. Thrift, Sea Pink. (The monkish Latin Flos 

 Armerioe, applied to a Pink, and transferred to Thrift). — Low and stemless 

 herbs, of the Old World, with one variable species widely dispersed in the New 

 and familiar in cultivation ; the narrow leaves much crowded on the crown or 



