146 



C11EN0P0DIACEAE. 



woody rootstocks, erect, or decumbent and rooting at the joints; herbage 

 greenish. 



Very abundant in salt marshes about San Francisco and Suisun bays. 



8. SUAEDA Forsk. Sea Blite. 

 Fleshy plants of salt marshes or alkaline plains, with alternate subterete 

 linear leaves. Flowers perfect, or perfect and pistillate on the same plant, 

 sessile in the axils of the leafy bracts, minutely bracteolate; calyx with 5 

 lobes, fleshy, enclosing the utricle and mostly carinate or crested. Stamens 5. 

 Styles 2 or 3, short and rather thick. Seed with a dark, shining crustaceous 

 testa and a spiral embryo. (Name from the Arabic.) 



Succulent, woody only at base; branches decumbent, with ascending branchlets; flowers 

 1 to 3 in the axils 1. S. californica. 



Mostly suffrutescent. with erect main stem and ascending branches; flowers 3 to 7 in 

 the axils 2.5. torreyana. 



1. S. californica Wats. Glabrous and slightly glaucous; main stem or 

 woody trunk short, giving rise to decumbent branches 3 to 9 ft. long, these 

 woody for 1 or 2 ft., then succulent, bearing ascending or erect branchlets % 

 to 1 ft. long, and forming low circular plants 6 to 12 ft. in diameter; leaves 

 spreading or somewhat recurved, densely crowded upon the branchlets, broadly 

 linear, acute, 6 lines long; flowers large, 2 lines broad, 1 to 3 in the axils, 

 when 3 the central one perfect, the 2 lateral smaller and pistillate; seed jet- 

 black. 



Sandy beaches bordering San Francisco Bay, the known stations few: San 

 Pablo Landing; Bay Farm Island. Sept. -Oct. Ovary glabrous, surmounted 

 by a short thick column, the styles arising from the concavity of the cup- 

 shaped summit of the column. 



2. S. torreyana Wats. Alkali Blite. Of bushy but irregular habit, 

 woody at base, about 2 ft. high; herbage greenish; leaves not dense, 5 to 7 lines 

 long, mostly acute; clusters several (mostly 3 to 7) -flowered; calyx fleshy, 5- 

 parted, the stamens included; ovary as in no. 1. 



Alkaline soil: Livermore Pass and southward through the San Joaquin. 



S. suffrutescens Wats. Compact symmetrical bush of about equal diam- 

 eter and height, 6 to 15 (or 18) in. high, the woody base short; herbage gray 

 with a dense soft pubescence; flowers 1 (rarely 2 or 3) in each axil; calyx 

 5-lobed, dryish, the stamens exserted ; ovary woolly ; styles not arising from 

 a cup-shaped concavity. — Alkaline plains, western Madera Co., H. L. Westover, 

 and southward. 



Salsola kali L. var. tenuifolia G. F. W. Mey. Russian Thistle. Bushy 

 annual; leaves filiform, spiny; flowers solitary and axillary, sessile, perfect, 

 with 2 bractlets; calyx usually rose-color, 5-parted, its divisions at length hori- 

 zontally winged on the back, the wings forming a broad scarious border. — Ob- 

 noxious weed, sparingly introduced. First appeared in Antelope Valley near 

 Lancaster (about 1890), Bakersfield (1895), Antioch (1900) and Stanislaus 

 Co. (1903). Also in the Salinas Valley, Hickman. A "tumble-weed," called 

 by the Russians ' ' wind-witch. ' ' 



Phytolacca decandra L., Pokeweed, belongs to the Phytolacacceae. Tall 

 perennial herb with reddish purple steins, alternate entire thin petioled leaves 

 and flowers in racemes; sepals 5, petal-like, white, rounded, 2y. 2 lines long; 

 Btamena 5 to 30; ovary lobed, several-celled, the styles as many as the cells; 

 fruit a dark crimson or purple berry which is poisonous. — Lake Co., naturalized 

 from the Eastern United States. 



