CHENOPODIACE^. 



703 



obovate. Fruiting perianth always borne 

 on a pedicel of 2 or 3 lines ; the seg- 

 ments wedge-shaped, united to the top, 

 where the two angles often project into 

 little recurved points. 



In the saline districts of central and 

 south Russian Asia, on the shores of the 

 Black Sea, the Baltic, and the North 

 Sea, as far west as Belgium, but ap- 

 parently absent from the Mediterranean 

 and the Atlantic coasts. In Britain, 

 only on the eastern shores of England. 

 Fl. summer and autumn. 



Fig. 846. 



3. Garden Orache. Atriplex hortensis, Linn. (Fig. 847.) 

 {A. nitens. Brit. Fl.) 



An erect, stout annual, attaining 4 or 

 5 feet in height. Leaves broadly tri- 

 angular, cordate or hastate, or the up- 

 per ones narrow, green or slightly white 

 and mealy underneath. Flowers very 

 numerous and crowded, in a long, ter- 

 minal, leafy pa,nicle. Fruiting perianths 

 of 2 broad, flat segments, distinct nearly 

 from the base, 3 or 4 lines long, quite 

 entire, thin and net-veined, closely clasp- 

 ing the flat vertical seed : intermixed 

 with them are also several small, regu- 

 lar, 5 -cleft perianths, half-closed over a 

 horizontal seed as in the Goosefoots. 



Of east European or west Asiatic 

 origin, but has long been cultivated in 

 kitchen-gardens, and was formerly much 

 used as spinage, and has established it- 

 self as an escape from cultivation in se- 

 veral parts of Europe. In Britain, said to be tolerably abundant on 

 the seacoast near Byde, in the Isle of Wight. Fl. end of summer, 



Fig. 847. 



