208 



DESCRIPTIVE BOTANY. 



Order XLIII. CHENOPODIACE^. 



Flowers perfect, small, sometimes polygamous, sessile or pediceled, 

 solitary or agglomerated, axillary or terminal, bracteate or naked; 

 calyx o-3-sepals, greenish and coherent at base, imbricate in the bud ; 

 corolla wanting ; stamens hypogynous, or as many as sepals, or fewer 

 at the bottom of calyx, opposite the sepals; filaments thread-like, 

 mostly free, sometimes united just at the base in a cup ; ovary egg- 

 shaped, usually free, 1-celled ; style 2-3-lobed or 2-3 styles. Fruit, a 

 utricle ; seed mostly free, lens-shaped or kidney-shaped. "^ Leaves alter- 

 nate, simple, sessile or petioled, entire, toothed or sinuate, frequently 

 fleshy, without stipules. Herbaceous or suffrutescent, sometimes 

 shrubby. 



No. of genera, 80 ; species, 520 ; cosmopolitan ; mostly in temperate 

 climates. 



BETA, Tournefort. Calyx hollow and contracted at the mouth, 

 5-cleft, persistent, becoming hardened at the base ; stamens 5 ; ovary 

 depressed, partly inferior ; stigmas 2, the small bladdery fruit, with a 

 thickish, hardened, depressed pericarp, enclosed in the calyx: seed 

 horizontal. Leaves alternate ; flowers in spikes. Herbs. 



B. vulgaris, Moq. (Beet.) Stem 2 to 5 feet high, angled, branched in form 

 of panicle, appearing the second year. Leaves of the first year 6 to 15 inches 



long, 4 to 8 inches wide, spatulate, edges 

 wavy ; radical leaves of the second year 

 like those of the first ; stem-leaves smaller, 

 of dingy copper-color to dark-purple, ovate, 

 lanceolate; root biennial, 3 to 10 inches in 

 diameter, and 5 to 15 inches long, fusi- 

 form, tapering downwards to a slender 

 fibrous point. Color, from dark-yellow to 

 dark-red. Flowers greenish-wliite, in ses- 

 sile, head-like cymes, forming slender spikes, 

 arranged in leafy panicles; appearing in 

 July. Seed rugose or wrinkled. 



The beet is propagated from the seed, 

 and sports freely, producing many varie- 

 ties, the general forms of which are two, 

 — the long beet, and the turnip beet. 



Var. cicla, the long, cylindrical-rooted 

 beet. 



Var. rapa, flat or turnip-rooted beet. 

 Var. mangel-wiirzel, large-rooted beet. 

 Under these forms there are many varieties, as may be seen by consulting 

 the catalogues of the seedsmen, and the varieties under cultivation are very 

 constant. 



Geography. — The beet grows well in rich soil throughout the middle parts 

 of the temperate zone, especially in Europe, north Africa, and the temperate 

 parts of British India. Tt was brought to North America by British and 

 Dutch colonists, and is largely grown here. 



Beta vulgaris rapa (Turnip Beet). 



