410 CHENOPODIACE^E. (GOOSEFOOT FAMILY.) 



bladder-like, with a toothed or torn margin, at length spongy and narrowly 

 wing-bordered, enclosing the flattened thin utricle. Stamens 1 or 2. Styles 2, 

 united at base. Seed vertical. Embryo thick, conduplicate : no albumen. — 

 Low saline plants, with succulent leafless jointed sterns, and opposite branches ; 

 the flower-bearing branchlets forming the spikes. (Name composed of sal, salt, 

 and coma, a horn ; saline plants with horn-like branches.} 



§ 1. Animals: spikes very thick and fleshy : flowers and seed* deeply immersed. 



1. S. herbacea, L. Erect or at length spreading (6' -12' high), green* 



scales obscure and very blunt, making a truncate barely emarginate termination 

 of the joints of stem or elongated spike; middle flower much higher than the 

 lateral ones; seed oval or oblong. — Salt marshes of the coast and interior salt 

 springs. Aug. -Oct. (Eu.) 



2. S. Virginica, L. (pi. Clayt.) Erect, less branched, naked below 

 (2' -9' high), turning red in age; spike shorter and thicker; scales mucronate- 

 pointed and conspicuous, especially when dry ; middle flower little higher than 

 the lateral ones; seed round-oval. (S. mucronata, Lagasca? 1818, Bigelow, and 

 Ed. 2.) — Salt marshes, coast of Virginia to Maine. Sept., Oct. (Eu. ?) 



§ 2. Perennial. : spikes less thick, and flowers less immersed; middle one hardly higher. 



3. S. frutieosa, L., var. ambigua. (S. ambigua, Michx.) Numerous 

 tufted stems (3' -12' long) decumbent or ascending from a hard and rather 

 woody creeping base or rootstock, greenish, turning lead-colored ; the cylindri- 

 cal joints rather strongly notched at the end; seed round-oval. — Sandy wet 

 beaches, &c, Massachusetts to Virginia and southward. Aug. - Oct. (Eu.) 



7. SU^IDA, Eorskal. Sea Blite. 



Flowers perfect, solitary or clustered in the axils of the leaves. Calyx 5- 

 parted, not appendaged, fleshy, becoming somewhat inflated and closed over the 

 fruit (utricle). Stamens 5. Stigmas 2 or 3. Seed vertical or horizontal, with 

 a flat-spiral embryo, dividing the scanty albumen (when there is any) into 2 

 portions. — Fleshy maritime plants, with alternate nearly terete linear leases. 

 (An Arabic name.) Chknopodina, Moquin was founded for those species, 

 like ours, which have horizontal seeds, — a wholly insufficient and inconstant 

 difference. 



1. S. maritima, Dumortier. Annual, smooth, diffusely much branched ; 

 leaves slender (1' long), acute; calyx-lobes keeled; stigmas 2 ; seed horizontal. 

 (Chenopodina maritima, Moquin.) — Salt marshes of the sea-shore, and on the 

 northwest plains. Aug. ( Eu. ) 



9. SALSOLA, L. Saltwort. 



Flowers perfect, with 2 bractlets. Calyx 5-parted, persistent and enclosing 

 rhe depressed fruit in its base ; its divisions at length horizontally winged on the 

 back, the wings forming a broad and circular scarious border. Stamens mostly 

 5. Styles 2. Seed horizontal, without albumen, filled by the embryo, which is 

 toiled in a conical spiral (cochleate). — Herbs, or slightly shrubby branching 

 } lants of the sea-shore, with fleshy and rather terete or awl-shaped leaves, and 



