122 AMAEANTHACEAE. 



spongy in fruit, deciduous. Stamens 2, or sometimes solitary, exserted; fila- 

 ments oylindrio, short; anthers oblong, large. Ovary ovoid; styles or stigmas 2. 

 Utricles enclosed by the spongy fruiting calyx, the pericarp membranous. 

 Seed erect, compressed; embryo eonduplicate ; endosperm none. [Name Greek, 

 salt-horn; from the saline habitat, and horn-like branches.] About 10 species, 

 natives of saline soil, widely distributed in both the Old World and the New. 

 Type species: Salicornia europaea Xi. 



Perennial ; prostrate with erect branches. 1. S. perennis. 



Annual ; erect. 2. S. Bigelovii. 



1. Salicornia perennis Mill. Gard. Diet. ed. 8, no. 2. 1768. 



Salicornia amhigua Michx. M. Bor. Am. 1: 2. 1803. 



Perennial by a woody rootstock; stem trailing or decumbent 1.5-6 dm. 

 long, rooting, the branches ascending or erect, slender, nearly or quite simple, 

 rather long-jointed. Scales broadly ovate or wider than high, appressed or 

 slightly divergent; fruiting spikes 1-4 cm. long, their joints not longer than 

 thick; flowers all about equally high and about equalling the joints; seeds 

 covered with slender hairs. 



Salinas, usually on the edge of mangrove colonies, throughout the archipelago 

 from Abaco and Great Bahama to Andres, the Caicos and Turks Islands and 

 Inagua : — North American coasts, Massachusetts to Florida and west to Texas ; Ber- 

 muda : Cuba : St. Croix ; Jamaica. An Inagua specimen was referred by Standley 

 (N. A. Fl. 21:83) to the European S. fruticosa L. which this species much re- 

 sembles. Woody Glasswoet. Wild Coeal. Guinea-bead. 



2. Salicornia Bigelovii Torr. Bot. Mex. Bound. Surv. 184. 1859. 



Salicornia mucronata Bigelow, El. Bost. ed. 2, 2: 1824. Not Lag. 1817. 



Annual, stout, erect or nearly so, 5-50 em. tall, more or less branched, 

 the branches stout. Scales ovate or triangular-ovate, sharply mueronate, 2-3 

 mm. long, at length spreading; fruiting spikes 1-12 cm. long, their joints not 

 longer than thick; middle flower slightly higher than the lateral ones, reaching 

 very nearly to the end of the joint; seed covered with short hairs. 



In saline marshes, Abaco, Andros and Grand Turk : — Nova Scotia to Florida and 

 Texas ; California ; Cuba ; Porto Eico ; Yucatan. Bigblow's Glasswoet. 



Family 2. AMAEANTHACEAE J. St. Hil. 



Amaranth Family. 



Herbs, or a few genera low shrubs, with simple, mostly entire, thin 

 leaves. Flowers small, green or white, bracteolate, variously clustered, 

 usually in terminal spikes or axillary heads. Petals none. Calyx her- 

 baceous or membranous, 2-5-parted, the segments distinct, or united at 

 the base, equal, or the inner ones smaller. Stamens 1-5, mostly opposite 

 the calyx-segments, hypogynoiis; filaments distinct, united at the base, or 

 into a tube. Ovary 1-celled; ovule solitary in the majority of genera, 

 amphitropous, several in some tropical genera; stigmas 1-3. Fruit a 

 utricle, circumscissile, bursting irregularly, or indehiscent, 1-seeded or sev- 

 eral-seeded. Seeed mostly smooth; embryo annular; endosperm mealy, 

 usually copious. About 40 genera and 475 species, widely distributed, most 

 abundant in warm regions. 



