355 

 A Revision of the Australian Salicornieae. 

 By J. M. Black. 



[Read October 9, 1919.] 

 Plates XXXIII. to XXXVII. 



A tribe of Chenopodiaceae, popularly called "samphire" 

 in Australia; low shrubs composed of imbricate articles more 

 or less saucer-shaped at the summit and succulent during the 

 first year. Later on the articles harden and finally lose all 

 sign of the margins at the summit, becoming a continuous 

 woody branch or stem. The flowers are normally arranged in 

 3's in hollows on each side of the lower part of the fertile 

 articles, but in Salicomia australis 1' or 2 pairs of flowers are 

 added at each side of the triad, so that we have a row of 5 or 7 

 flowers, instead of 3, or a whorl of 10 or 14 flowers, instead 

 of one of 6. In Tecticornia cinerea, on the other hand, the 

 triad is doubled and there are 6 flowers under each scale, or a 

 whorl of 12 in all. The flowers are more or less protected by 

 the margin of the article just below them. The article is 

 usually regarded as consisting of 2 opposite rudimentary 

 leaves, united by a sheath and combined with a succulent base 

 which surrounds the whole internode. 



In all the genera except Tecticornia the articles are 

 practically of one form and there is so little difference between 

 barren and fertile articles that in Arthrocnemum halocnem- 

 oides and Pachycornia tenuis one sometimes finds new shoots 

 springing from the summit of the flowering spike, or the 

 lower articles of the spike are barren. In Tecticornia the 

 barren articles resemble those of other genera, but the fertile 

 ones are split to the axis into 2 spreading opposite scales, and 

 the stout spike consists of these scales decussately arranged 

 along the axis. 



The flowers are either bisexual or male only. In most 

 species they are normally bisexual, but in Arthrocnemum 

 arbuscula and in Pachycornia the central flower is bisexual 

 and the 2 lateral are male. There is usually one stamen to 

 each flower, and it is placed in front of the pistil. The only 

 exceptions I haye found are Salicomia australis, which has 

 often 2 stamens, one before and one behind the pistil, and 

 Pachycornia robusta, in one central flower of which were 2 

 stamens. The stamens ripen and protrude while the pistil is 

 still very young, and this fact may easily lead to error in the 

 examination of relaxed specimens, because the stamen is con- 

 spicuous, while the pistil is very difficult! to find, and a flower 

 m2 



