CHENOPODIACE XX. 5 
3 inches to 1 foot long, marked with narrow pale stripes on a green 
ground; sometimes nearly erect, and 18 inches to 2 feet high, with 
flexuous branches. Leaves numerous, } to 1} inch long, slightly 
recurved, dilated and membranous at the base, but not clasping more 
than one-third of the stem, the tips terminating in a stiff short spine; 
upper leaves shorter and broader. Each flower with 2 bracts resembling 
the leaf in the axil of which it is situated, but rather shorter. Pe- 
rianth segments at first erect, lanceolate, scarious, becoming enlarged 
and cartilaginous and connivent in fruit, when it is furnished about 
the middle with a transverse scarious wing spreading horizontally and 
varying much in breadth. Stamens 5; anthers pale yellow. Style 2- 
or 3-cleft, with the branches stigmatiferous. Fruit depressed-tur- 
binate, crowned by the base of the style, and concealed by the con- 
nivent perianth segments. Seed horizontal, with a brown membranous 
testa which adheres to the thin pericarp; embryo green. Plant green, 
slightly glaucous, succulent, more or less hairy in all the British 
specimens I have seen. 
Prickly Saltwort. 
French, Soude épineuse. German, Gemeines Salzkraut. 
This plant was at one time highly valued on account of the quantity of soda it 
contains, and was collected on the seashore, and burned for the use of soap manu- 
facturers. The ashes are known by the name of barilla. Less cumbrous methods of 
obtaining soda are now more frequently employed. 
Trise I.—SALICORNEZE. 
Flowers all alike, and commonly all perfect. Seeds sparingly albu- 
minous; embryo variously placed, conduplicate. 
Herbs with jointed stems, leafless, or with fleshy leaves. Flowers in 
spikes, buried in excavations of the rachis, or in the axils of the leaves. 
GENUS II—SALICORNIA. Towrnef. 
Flowers perfect or polygamous, buried in excavations in the axis, 
8 arranged in a triangle on each side at the base of the internodes. 
Calyx free from the ovary, fleshy, compressed, truncate or 3 to 4-toothed 
at the apex. Stamens 1 or 2. Styles 2, included in the perianth. 
Fruit compressed, membranous, enveloped in the closed calyx, which 
is wingless, or with a faint transverse wing at the top. Seed vertical, 
with a single membranous testa or a double one of which the outer layer 
is crustaceous ; embryo variously placed with respect to the albumen. 
Leafless herbs or undershrubs with jointed succulent stems. Spikes 
thickened in fruit. 
The name of this genus of plants is derived from the words sal, salt, and cornu, a 
horn, from its nature and the shape of its stems. 
