144 CHENOPODIACEAE. 



commonly 2 staminate and 2 pistillate in each cluster, these and the sub- 

 tending leaves crowded on the branchlets, the internodes at time of flowering 

 a line long or loss; fruiting bracts ovate-hastate, acute, wingless, or the pair 

 of hastate lobes representing the wing. 



Low saline spots, base of the Pelejo Hills, Solano Co. 



5. A. cordulata Jepson. Annual; widely and oppositely branched at base, 

 alternately and sparingly so above, 7 to 15 in. high, the branches commonly 

 virgate, erect or ascending; herbage scurfy throughout; leaves sessile, cordate- 

 ovate, 3 or 4 lines long; flower-clusters in all the axils, consisting of both 

 staminate and pistillate flowers; calyx tomentosely-scurfy and deeply 4-cleft; 

 fruiting bracts semi-orbicular, 1% to 2 lines broad, much compressed, sessile 

 or short-stipitate, the margin with acute teeth, the terminal tooth commonly 

 the largest, the sides smooth or the lower bearing one or more tooth-like pro- 

 jections. 



Alkaline flats: lower Sacramento Valley; San Joaquin Valley. 



6. A. coronata Wats. Annual, 3 to 12 in. high, sometimes rather stout, 

 white-scurfy throughout; branches simple or nearly so, two or three pairs op- 

 posite at base, the upper alternate; leaves oblong-lanceolate or ovate, sessile, 

 3 to 8 lines long; flowers androgynous in the axils of the leafy stems, two 

 or three in a cluster; calyx deeply 4-cleft; stamens 4; fruiting bracts orbicular, 

 compressed, 2 lines long, the margins crenate-dentate, the sides rarely muricu- 

 late. — (A. coronata var. verna Jepson.) 



Saline flats: Solano Co. southward to Santa Clara Co. May- June. 



7. A. expansa Wats. Annual, erect, much branched, 2 to 3y 2 ft. high; 

 herbage closely and finely mealy-scurfy; leaves broadly ovate or deltoid-ovate, 

 irregularly and sharply sinuate-toothed, 1 to 3 in. long, the lower on stout 

 petioles 9 to 10 lines long and strongly 3 -nerved from the base, the upper 

 reduced to sessile and more or less cordate floral bracts as broad as (or broader 

 than) long; flower clusters androgynous or showing a tendency to become 

 unisexual; fruiting bracts numerous, clustered in the axils, sessile, orbicular, 

 mostly 3-nerved, 2 lines long, 2% to 3 lines broad, usually emarginate at apex, 

 the wing sharply toothed, partly distinct, and commonly bearing on one face 

 a few irregular projections or crests. 



Low alkaline areas of the interior: lower Sacramento Valley; San Joaquin 

 Valley, where abundant. 



8. A. bracteosa Wats. Perennial, more or less diffuse, with steins 1 to 

 several ft. long; branches smooth and shining, straw-yellow; foliage finely 

 grayish scurfy; leaves oblong-ovate, acute, 4 to 9 lines long, thin, sharply but 

 sparingly toothed or the smaller entire; flower clusters unisexual, the stami- 

 oate in terminal submouiliform spikes, the pistillate axillary; fruiting bracts 

 a line long, the margin laciniately toothed or simply dentate and the central 

 tooth lanceolate and conspicuous. 



Saline flats: lower Sacramento Valley; San Joaquin Valley. 



9. A. fruticulosa Jepson. Herbaceous or slightly suffrutescent perennial; 

 stilus several l'rom the base, erect, simple below, with terminal branchlets, 

 6 to l."» in. high; herbage grayish; leaves sessile, lanceolate or narrowly oblong, 

 'i to "i in. long; staminate Cowers in dense globose clusters 2 lines in diam- 

 eter, the clusters in a terminal simple or sometimes slightly branched spike, 

 naked or nearly so; pistillate chiefly below, from the leaf axils; fruiting bracts 

 orbicular, 1 j _. to 2 lines broad, the margins partly tree, the sides tooth-crested. 



