6 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
SPECIES I-SALICORNIA HERBACEA. Lin. 
Pirates MCLXXXI. MCLXXXII. 
Billot, Fl. Gall. et Germ. Exsicc. No. 1317. 
Root annual. Stem not rooting; branches opposite, usually again 
conspicuously branched; internodes of the stem and branches thickened 
upwards, and slightly compressed. Spikes terete in flower, cylin- 
drical in fruit. Flowers in threes, immersed in the fleshy spike towards 
the base on each side of each internode, the 3 flowers arranged nearly 
in an equilateral triangle. Perianth slightly winged along the cleft 
in fruit. Seed with an herbaceous hairy testa. Plant green, or, more 
rarely, tinged with dull red or yellowish brown. 
Var. a, acetaria. Mog.-Tand. 
Prats MCLXXXI. 
S. annua, Sm. Engl. Bot. No. 415. 
Stem erect, branched; branches suberect. 
Var. 8, procumbens. 
Prats MCLXXXiTI. 
S. procumbens, Sm. Engl. Bot. No. 2475. 
Stem procumbent or decumbent. Branches spreading or pro- 
cumbent. 
On muddy salt marshes, especially by the sides of tidal rivers. 
Rather common, and generally distributed. Vars. a and £ about 
equally common. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Annual. Late Summer, Autumn. 
Stem and branches 4 inches to 2 feet high in var. «, rarely more than 
6 or 8 inches in var. @, with a central woody core covered with a 
smooth translucent herbaceous flesh, which is divided by joints at 
the nodes, the upper part of each internode larger than and embracing 
the base of the one next above it; branches very variable in length. 
Spikes formed of short fleshy internodes resembling those of the stem, 
each with 3 flowers on each of the two opposite sides: the succeeding 
internode with its flowers over the spaces between the two triangles of 
flowers. Stamens 1 or 2; anthers pale yellow. Seed greenish white, 
ovoid, hairy with curved hairs, enclosed in the calyx. Flesh drying 
up towards the bottom of the stem when the plant is in flower, so that 
it is merely covered by a dry greyish skin, and by the time the plant 
is in seed the fleshy portion is nearly all eroded except on the spikes, 
which become of a pale dirty yellow. ' 
