590 CHENOPODIAOE^ amabanthub 



late, paQgeiit-pointed. spreading, much longer than the 3 membranaceous 

 sepals : stamens 3 : utricle wrinkled, longer tlian the sepals, circumscissile 

 common in fields and waste places : naturalized from tropical America. 



A. carneus Greene Pitt, ii, 105. " Monoecious : glabrous, prostrate, 

 forming a mat 6-10 inches broad, the branches pinkish, the glomerules of 

 flowers and lower face of leaves deep flesh-purple : plant leafy and florifer- 

 ous throughout: leaves obovate-lanceolate, entire, setose-tipped,)^-^ inch 

 long) tapering to a short petiole: bracts ovate-acuminate and setose-tipped : 

 utricle smooth : seed black and'shining,)^ line wide. Beaver Canyon, Idaho.' 



* * * Sepal 1, Bract 1. 

 A. Califoruicns Watson Bot. Cal, ii, 42. Prostrate or ascending, 

 glabrous, branching at the base, the stems often a foot long or more, with 

 numerous short branchlets : leaves obovate to oblong, an inch long or less 

 including the petiole, often small, obtuse or acutiah, with white veins and 

 margin : flowers green or reddish, in numerous small dense axillary clus- 

 ters : bracts often membranaceous and inconspicuous, lanceolate, acumin- 

 ate slightly or not at all exceeding the utricle : sepal of the staminate flow- 

 ers \ line long, that of the fertile flower shorter and narrower, lateral : 

 utricle slightly rugose, tardily circumscissile : seed half a line broad. Idaho 

 to California and Southern Oregon. 



Order LXXVIII CHENOPODIACEiE Dumort. 

 AiUl. Fam 15. (1829.) 

 Herbs or shrubs with alternate or rarely opposite leaves 

 without stipules and small greenish flowers mostly in axillary 

 and terminal panicles or racemes. Flowers perfect, monoeci- 

 ous or dioecious. Calyx persistent, 2-5-lobed or 2-5-parted, 

 rarely reduced to a single sepal, or wanting in pistillate flowers. 

 Stamens as many as lobes or divisions of the calyx, or fewer, 

 opposite them : filaments slender : anthers 2 celled, longitudin- 

 ally dehiscent. Ovary mostly superior and free from the calyx, 

 1-celled, with a solitary amphitropous or campylotropous ovule 

 on a stipe rising from its base: styles 1-3, with capitate stig- 

 mas. Fruit an achene or utricle. Embryo slender, either 

 annular and surrounding the mealy albumen, or spiral with the 

 albumen lateral or wanting. 



Tribe i Flowers perfect, without bracts. Seeds free. 



1 Nitrophila Perennial herbs with opposite leaves and axillary flowers. 

 ^ Koohia Perennial herbs with scattered terete or linear leaves and 

 axillary flowers. 



8 Chenopodinm Annual or perennial herbs with mostly thin leaves : 

 flowers somewhat panicled. 



4 Blitum Annual herbs with broad thin leaves : flowers in dense spicate 



clusters. 



5 iMonoiepis Low annuals with the flowers densely clustered in the 



axils : sepal 1, bract like : stamen 1 : fruit naked : seeds vertical. 



Tribe ii Flowers monoecious or dioecious, bracted. Seeds free. 

 * Bracts compressed : testa of the seeds mostly coriaceous. 



6 Atriplex Fruiting bracts with margins often dilated and the sides 



often muricate. 



