54 PLUMBAGINACEaE. Statice. 



Tribe I. STATICE^E. Calyx with open limb scarious, colored, strongly plicate. 

 Petals (long-unguiculate) and filiform styles distinct or united only below. 



1 . STATICE. Flowers cymose-spioate, secund. Styles wholly separate. Leaves flat. 



2. ARMERIA. Flowers capitate-glomerate. Styles mostly united at the very base, stig- 

 matose down the inner side. Leaves usually slender, with no distinction of blade and 

 petiole. 



Tribe II. PLUMB AGINE.iE. Calyx with erect teeth or lobes, and merely scarious 

 sinuses. Claws of the petals completely united into a tube. Style filiform, 5-cleft 

 at the apex; the slender lobes stigmatic witliin. 



3. PLUMBAGO. Calyx tubular, beset with glands. Corolla salver-form with a long tube. 

 Stamens free from the corolla. Leafy-stemmed. 



1. STATICE, Tourn. Sea-Lavender, Maesh-Eosemaky. (The ancient 

 Greek name, referring to the use as an astringent.) — Large genus in the Old 

 World, very sparingly represented in the New, in N. America only by the section 

 Limonium, in which the styles are stigmatose down the inside ; the 1-3-flowered 

 spikelets about 3-bracteate, i.e. 1-bracteate and 2-3-bracteolate ; leaves all radical 

 and 1-ribbed. Fl. late summer. 



"S. Limoniuni, L. Root thick and woody, reddish: leaves thickish and rather fleshy, 

 oblong, spatulate or obovate-lanceolate, tapering into a long or rather long petiole, obtuse 

 or retuse, and usually mucrouate-tipped : scapes a foot or two high, loosely paniculate : 

 the branches spreading or rather erect : spikelets either crowded or soon rather scattered : 

 exterior or true bract ovate, herbaceous with scarious margin, much shorter and smaller 

 than the obtuse or retuse broadly scarious innermost braetlet : flowers lavender-color : 

 calyx hirsute on the angles below ; the lobes ovate-triangular and acute, and usually a 

 tooth in each sinus. — In various forms widely distributed over the world, mainly in salt 

 marshes of the coast. Ours are 



Var. Californica. Leaves thinnish, retuse or obtuse and muticous : scape 2 feet or 

 more high : branches of the ample panicle densely floriferous at the summit, the spikelets 

 almost imbricated in short cymose spikes : innermost bract only twice the length of the 

 outermost. — Bot. Calif, i. 466. S. Californica, Boiss. in DC. Prodr. xii. 463. — S. W. Texas 

 ( C. Wright) to California. Resembles dense-flowered European S. Limonium. 



■'*' Var. Caroliniana, Gray (Man. 31.S). Inflorescence more paniculate than corym- 

 bose ; the 1-3-flowered spikelets soon separate or rather distant on the branching slender 

 spikes: bracts more unequal: calyx-lobes usually very acute or acuminate. — S. Ca:o- 

 liiii(ma,Wsi,lt. Car. 118; Bigel. Med. Bot. ii. 51, t. 2:5; Boiss. I.e. S. Limonium, Tott. VI. 

 i. .029, & Fl. N. Y. ii. 17. — Labrador to Texas. The Southern plant thinner-leaved, with 

 mucro often obsolete, branches of the spike filiform, and scattered spikelets small, 

 slender, and only 1-2-flowered : the northern forms with more fleshy veinless leaves, the 

 mucro conspicuous, flowers and 2-3-flowered spikelets larger, in closer less spreading 

 spikes; the smaller state nearly approaching the European var. Bahusiejisi^{S. Bahusiensis, 

 Fries), -^ 



S. Brasili6nsis, Boiss. Leaves oblong, rounded or retuse at the apex, thinnish : scape 

 (a foot or two high) and spreading branches of the panicle slender: spikelets 1-3-flowered, 

 slender, more or less remote in the spreading spikes : bractlets very unequal : flowers white 

 or whitish: calyx perfectly glabrous; the lobes ovate and acutish. — DC. 1. c. — Coast of 

 N. Carolina to Florida. (Mex. ? Brazil to Patagonia.) 



Var. angust^ta. Leaves linear or nearly so, tipped with an awn-like mucro, fleshy : 

 spikelets sparse. — Pine Key, Florida, in a salt marsh, Blodgett. Leaves 2 or 3 inches long 

 besides the petiole, 2 or 3 lines wide. 



2. ABMfiBIA, Willd. Thrift, Sea Pink. (The monkish Latin Flos 

 JrmericE, applied to a Pink, and transferred to Thrift). — Low and stemless 

 herbs, of the Old World, with one variable species widely dispersed in the New 

 and familiar in cultivation ; the narrow leaves much crowded on the crown or 



