30 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
Lower leaves serrate or dentate-serrate, with the basal angle a com- 
monly right angle. Spikes rather short, dense, arranged in a large 
much branched regular panicle. Fruit perianth usually denticulate, 
usually muricated on the back. 
In cultivated ground and waste places, and by roadsides, more 
rarely on sandy seashores. Var. # very common, and generally dis- 
tributed. Var. @ also common. Var. y very rare; I have seen it 
crowing only at Twickenham, where it was found by the Rev. W. 
W. Newbould in 1867; Smith states it was found by Professor 
Martyn, sen., at the entrance of Battersea Fields from Nine Elms. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Annual. Late Summer, Autumn. 
Stem erect or ascending, 6 inches to 2 feet high, generally branched 
with long lower branches, leaving the stem at a right angle and com- 
monly curving upwards, but sometimes spreading throughout. Leaves 
1 to 4 inches long, variable in breadth. Leaves on the main stem always 
opposite, the lower ones with a large projecting tooth at the lateral 
angles so as to be hastate, the tooth pointing towards the apex of the 
leaf ; uppermost leaves often alternate, destitute of this tooth; leaves 
on the branches smaller than those on the main stem and alternate. 
Spikes usually with the glomerules contiguous above, the lower ones 
often distant, with leaves at the base as in A. littoralis. Perianth variable 
in size, usually from } to } inch long, in var. « frequently foliaceous 
and t inch long. Seeds black, rather smaller than those of A. littoralis, 
and much more distinctly punctured. Plant dull dark green, more or 
less thickly covered, especially when young, with whitish meal, which 
sometimes, but rarely, obscures the green colour of the plant. 
The var. B is often taken for the A. erecta of Hudson. It has the 
leaves usually broader than in var. 4, and the branches more erect, 
and shorter in proportion to the central stems; the leaves being ser- 
rated, and the perianth muricated on the back, are certainly little 
deserving of consideration as separating characters, as they are specially 
liable to variation in the genus Atriplex. 
Var. y is perhaps a subspecies; it has the habit of Chenopodium 
ficifolium, with very stout stiffly erect stems, 18 inches to 3 feet high, 
and erect or erect-ascending branches; the lower ones much shorter 
than in the two other vars. The fruit perianth is smaller, and the 
spikes much denser and more numerous, forming a great panicle like 
that of A. deltoidea, which it resembles also in the dense leafless spikes 
and small perianth, but the leaves are wedgeshaped at the base with the 
cusps ascending. It is desirable that experiments should be made to 
ascertain if this form be constant when raised from seed. 
Narrow-leaved Orache. 
French, Arroche étalée. German, Ausgebreitete Melde. 
This species is sometimes gathered as a potherb, and eaten instead of spinach and 
other greens, 
