365 



3. Salicornia, L. 



1. S. australis, Banks et Sol. (MSS. et ic.) ex Hook. i. 

 Fl. N. Zel., i., 216, ann. 1853 (nomen pro synonymo S- 

 indicae, Willd. perperam citatum, sed cum descriptione S. 

 australis); Sol. ex Forster f. Prodr. 88, ann 1786 (nomen 

 nudum fide Benth. Fl. Aust., v., 205, ann. 1870); S. 

 quinq ue flora, Bunge ex TJng.-Sternb. Vers. Syst. Salic, 59, 

 ann. 1866. (PI. xxxvii.) Low shrub with procumbent stems 

 rooting at the nodes; branches usually erect, light green; 

 barren articles 7-20 mm. long, 3-5 mm. thick, lobes short but 

 acute, keeled; spike 10-45 mm. long, when ripe 4-7 mm. thick 

 and often bright red; fertile articles 5-20, subglobular; 

 flowers in 5's or 7's, rarely in 3's near summit of spike, all 

 bisexual ; stamens 1 or 2 ; perianth at first membranous, after- 

 wards thickened and rather hard, dilated and truncate at 

 summit; pericarp hyaline; seed suborbicular, compressed, \\ 

 mm. diam.j testa chartaceous, straw-coloured, softly villous; 

 endopleura membranous, enclosing separately the cotyledons 

 and the radicle, which are of equal length and folded on one 

 another; albumen absent. 



At Port Victoria the plant grows in low, cushion-like 

 tufts and has a strong tendency towards dioecism, the spikes 

 in one tuft having flowers with 2 stamens, and a pistil (perhaps 

 abortive) with very short style-branches ; the spikes of another 

 tuft have pistils with long style-branches and no apparent 

 stamens. 



S. Australia. In salt soil at Patawalonga Creek, near 

 Glenelg; Port Adelaide River at Ethelton, Birkenhead, and 

 the Grange; Port Elliot; Port Noarlunga ; Lake Ormerod, 

 near Naracoorte ; Murat Bay ; Mount Nor' West (between 

 Lake Torrens and Lake Eyre) ; Port Victoria, Y.P. 



Queensland. Cabbage-tree Creek, Moreton Bay; Mooloo- 

 lah River (C. T. White, in Queensland Herb.). 



This species, easily recognizable by the unusual number 

 of flowers below each fertile article, appears to inhabit all the 

 Australian States and also New Zealand. 



Banks and Solander's MSS. and illustration of this 

 species, mentioned by Hooker, as above, have not been re- 

 produced by J. Britten in Illustrations of the botany of 

 Captain Cook's voyage (1900-05). 



Halocnemum ausiralasicum, Moq. Chenop. enum. 110 

 (1840), from King George Sound, was left undecided by 

 Bentham (Fl. Aust., v., 202 and 205), who had not seen the 

 specimen. In Benth. et Hook. Gen. pi. iii., 65, it is stated 

 to be Salicornia quinqueflora, Bunge ( = S. australis). If it 

 is really that species it is strange that Moquin should have 

 placed it in Halocnemum, a genus which he describes as 

 possessing "albumen basilare et laterale, parcum, carnosum." 



