CHEXOPODIACEAE. 139 



peduncle glandular with short hairs; leaves thin, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, 

 acuminate or even attenuate, usually rounded at base, 3 to 8 in. long, the 

 petioles 1 to 3*4 in. long; spikes 1 to 3 in. long, often in pairs; calyx rose- 

 color or pink, 5-parted to the middle; stamens 5, exserted; style 2-cleft; achene 

 lenticular. 



Lakes and sluggish streams from the coast to the Sacramento Yalley and 

 far northward and eastward. 



9. P. lapathifolium L. Common Kxotweed. Annual, commonly stout, 



1 to 4 ft. high, branching, glabrous except a very scanty glandular pubescence 

 on the peduncles and a scabrous pubescence on the leaf-margins ; leaves broadly 

 lanceolate, attenuate upward from near the base and mostly long-acuminate, 

 cuneate at base and short-petioled, 4 to 5 in. long; spikes axillary and ter- 

 minal, oblong and erect or linear and nodding, 1 in. long or more; calyx white 

 or flesh-color, 1 line long; stamens 6, included; styles 2 or 3-parted; achene 

 lenticular or rarely triangular. — (P. nodosum Pers.) 



Common along streams or in marshy lands, often whitening great areas. 

 Aug.-Sept. 



10. P. persicaria L. Lady's Thumb. Eesembling P. lapathifolium but 

 the sheaths and bracts conspicuously ciliate; leaves sub-sessile; spikes shorter 

 and erect; stamens generally 6, included; style 2 or 3-parted. 



San Francisco. Widely distributed in Xorth America and the Old World. 



11. P. acre H.B.K. Dotted Smakt-"weed. Perennial, rooting and de- 

 cumbent at base, erect and branching above, 2 to 5 ft. high, glabrous or the 

 margin of the leaves scabrous; leaves lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, acumin- 

 ate, attenuate to a very short petiole, 2 to 3 in. long; sheaths and the short 

 bracts mostly bristly-ciliate ; inflorescence a panicle of spike-like racemes, 

 these loose and filiform, 1 to 3 in. long, erect on long peduncles ; calyx greenish, 

 conspicuously glandular, 5-parted, 1 line long; stamens 8, included; styles 



2 or 3-parted to the base; achene lenticular or triangular. — (P. punctatum 

 Ell.) 



Common in low and especially marshy ground or in moist mountain meadows. 

 Sept. An important bee-plant along the Sacramento Eiver (Yolo and Colusa 

 cos.), the honey yield as heavy as from alfalfa (M. C. Eichter). 



12. P. convolvulus L. Black Bindweed. Twining or trailing, the 

 stems 1 to several ft. long; herbage glabrous, pale green; leaves 1 to 2 in. long, 

 ovate, sagittate at base, acuminate at apex; flowers either in axillary clusters 

 or disposed in a raceme; calyx 5-cleft, in fruit minutely scurfy and closely 

 investing the black achene which is 2 lines long. 



Introduced from Europe: region of Mt. Shasta; San Francisco. 



CHENOPODIACEAE. Goosefoot Family. 



Herbs or shrubs, mostly halophytes, very often succulent or scurfy, with 

 alternate or rarely opposite leaves, or leafless. Flowers small (1 or 2 lines 

 long), perfect or unisexual with an herbaceous calyx of 5 or fewer sepals, 

 or in the pistillate flower the calyx sometimes absent. Stamens as many as 

 the sepals, and opposite them or fewer, distinct. Ovary superior, 1-eelled, 

 containing a single ovule, becoming in fruit an achene or utricle. Styles or 

 stigmas 2 or 3. Embryo annular and surrounding the mealy endosperm, or 

 spiral and the endosperm lateral or wanting. Xitrophila has a scarious calyx 

 and stamens not distinct. 





