182 



CHENOPODIACEJE. 



upper joints, and disposed in opposite clusters of 3, the lateral ones 

 of each trio often only staminate. Calyx small and bladder-like, 

 with an anterior opening, formed of 2 sepals laterally placed and 

 united above and below, in fruit spongy or thickened on the margins. 

 Stamens 2, exserted in flower. Ovary oblong; styles 2 to 3, short, 

 free. Pericarp membranous, in our species adherent to the vertical 

 seed. Endosperm small; embryo thick. (Name from sal, salt, and 

 cornu, horn, plants of saline habitat with horn-like branches.) 



1. S. ambigua Michx. Pickle-weed. Stems -3 to 12 in. long, 

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

 herbage greenish; spikes slender, terminal, not thicker than the sterile 

 portions of the stem, short-jointed, the scales short; flowers nearly 

 equal in height; seed £ line long. 



Very abundant in salt marshes about San Francisco and Suisun 

 Bays. S. Californica Jepson, of the Upper San Joaquin Valley, has 

 intercalary spikes much thicker than the sterile portions of the stem. 



8. SU/EDA Forsk. Sea Blite. 

 Fleshy plants of salt marshes or alkaline plains, with alternate sub- 

 terete linear leaves. Flowers perfect, or perfect and pistillate on the 

 same plant, sessile in the axils of the leafy bracts, minutely bracteo- 

 late; calyx 5-parted, fleshy, enclosing the utricle and mostly carinate 

 or crested- Stamens 5. Styles 2 or 3, short and rather thick. Seed 

 with a black, shining, crustaceous testa and a spiral embryo, the rad- 

 icle exterior. (Name from the Arabic.) 



Succulent, woody only at base; branches decumbent, with ascending branch- 

 lets; flowers 1 to 3 in the axils 1. S. Californica. 



Mostly suffrutescent, with erect main stem and ascending branches; flowers 

 5 or t! in the axils 2. S. Torreyana. 



1. S. Californica "Wats. Glabrous and slightly glaucous; main 

 stem or woody trunk short, £ ft. high, 1 to 1£ in. in diameter, 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 G to 12 ft. in diameter; leaves 

 spreading or somewhat recurved, densely crowded upon the branch- 

 lets, 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; perianth deeply cleft, the lobes with narrow, 

 scarious margins, not cucullate-appendaged; pericarp at maturity 

 thin and watery; seed vertical, \ line broad, notched at the lower 

 end, the testa jet-black, smooth and brittle. 



Sandy beaches bordering San Francisco Bay; rarely collected. 

 San Pablo Landing, Bolander; abundant on Bay Farm Island, 

 Jepson. Sept. -Oct. The flowers are decidedly protogynous, the 

 two or three stigmas being exserted between the tips of the calyces 

 before the flower expands. The ovary is surmounted by a short 

 thick column, the styles arising from the concavity of the cup-shaped 

 summit of the column. The herbage quickly blackens in drying or 

 when broken, as commonly in the genus. 



