WILD FLOWERS OF NEW YORK 93 



Goosefoot Family 



C li e n o ]) o (li a c e a e 

 Slender or Jointed Glasswort; Saltwort 



Sidiconiiti ettropaca Linnaeus 



A fleshy, glabrous annual plant, 4 to 20 inches high, usually erect and 

 much branched, with opposite, ascending branches, their joints two to 

 four times as long as thick. Leaves reduced to mere scales. P>uiting 

 spikes I to 3 inches long. Flowers three at each joint, the middle one as 

 high as the lateral ones. Each flower consists of a fleshy, obpyramidal 

 three-toothed calyx, two stamens and an ovoid ovary. Seed inclosed by 

 the spongy fruiting calyx. 



Common in salt marshes along the coast from Anticosti to Georgia, 

 and at the head of Onondaga lake. 



Pokeiveed Family 



Phytolaccaceae 

 Poke ; Scoke ; Pigeon Berry ; Garget 



Phytolacca americana Linnaeus 



Plate 50 



A tall, strong-smelling, succulent and glabrous plant witli an erect 

 herbaceous stem 3 to 10 feet tall, from a large, perennial, poisonous root, 

 the pith of the stem divided into discs separated by lens-shaped cavities. 

 Leaves oblong-lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, pinnately veined, acute or 

 acuminate at both ends, petioled, 5 to 12 inches long. Flowers in terminal 

 racemes, which become opposite the leaves by continued growth of the 

 stem. Each flower about one-fourth of an inch broad, consisting of four 

 or five rounded, white sepals; ten stamens, slightly shorter than the sepals; 

 and a ten-celled green ovary. Fruit a long raceme of dark-purple berries, 

 each one-fourth to three-eighths of an inch in diameter. 



In waste places, fields, woods and thickets, usually in moist soil, often 

 in stony fields and frequently a troublesome weed. Distributed from Maine 



