7 
36 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
inapplicable to A. arenaria, and the female flowers, he says, are axillary 
and in pairs, but in our A. arenaria they are generally much more 
numerous—although often only 1 or 2 produce seed, yet few but the 
very smallest specimens have less than 4 or 5 female flowers in the 
axils of the leaves. 
Frosted Sea Orache. 
French, Arroche laciniée. German, Gelappte Melde. 
Section II.—OBIONE. Gart. 
Flowers monecious or dicecious. Female flowers with 2 sepals 
united to the middle or free only at the apex. Pericarp very thin, 
adhering to the tube of the perianth when ripe. Radicle superior. 
SPECIES VL-ATRIPLEX PORTU LACOIDES. Lin. 
Prats MCCVIL. 
Obione portulacoides, Mog.-Tand. in D.O. Prod. Vol. XII. Pt. ii. p. 112. Bab. Man. 
Brit, Bot. ed. vi. p. 290. Gren. & Godr. Fl. de Fr. Vol. III. p. 14. 
Halimus portulacoides, Dwmort. Bab. in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin. Vol. I. p. 16. Koch, 
Fl. Germ. et Helv. ed. ii. p. 700. Fries, Sum. Veg. Scand. p. 54. 
Perennial. Stem shrubby at the base, decumbent or trailing, much 
branched ; branches erect or ascending and curving upwards at the apex. 
Leaves mostly opposite, oblanceolate or obovate or elliptical, wedge- 
shaped at the base, subobtuse, entire; the upper ones narrower, opposite 
or alternate; a few of the uppermost strapshaped; none of them hastate. 
Flowers monecious, in glomerules arranged in rather dense leafless 
spikes, combined into a small lax terminal panicle, with small strap- 
shaped leaves at the base of the branches. Fruit perianth subsessile, 
obdeltoid-rhombie or obovate-rhombic, with the valves united as far 
up as the points of the lateral lobes, 3-lobed at the apex, smooth or 
slightly muricated on the back; the lateral lobes short and subfaleate, 
the central lobe forming a tooth. Seed small, compressed, brown, 
rugose, opaque. Stem not striped ; leaves densely clothed with con- 
tiguous dirty white scales. 
In salt marshes, on cliffs and waste places by the sea. Common, 
and generally distributed in England. Very rare in Scotland, where 
it occurs on the coast of Wigtonshire ; it has also been reported from 
the banks of the Clyde at Helensburgh, but this report requires verifi- 
cation. Very rare in Ireland, confined to the southern and eastern 
coasts. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Shrub. Late Summer, Autumn. 
Rootstock shortly creeping, woody. Stems flexuous, wiry, 1 to 
