General description:- Herbs or rarely small shrubs.
Leaves Opposite or alternate, entire, without stipules (exstipulate).
Flowers:- Usually hermaphrodite, often in spicate or capitate, usually bracteate
inflorescences; bracteoles 2-5. Perianth almost always dry and scarious, usually 4-
or 5-merous; segments free or united connate at the base. Stamens 1-5, opposite
the perianth-segments and usually not exserted. Ovary superior, unilocular; ovules
amphitropous.
Fruit:- With a membranous, rarely fleshy wall, splitting open to release the seeds
(dehiscing) irregularly, or opening by a slit running around the circumference
(circumscissile) (sometimes indehiscent).
Includes the following Genera:-
Genus:- AMARANTHUS
General description:- Annual, rarely perennial herbs; monoecious or dioecious.
Leaves:- Usually alternate.
Flower:- Bracteoles 3-5, small and herbaceous or membranous and spinescent.
Perianth-segments 0-5, linear or lanceolate to spathulate. Styles and stigmas 2 or
3.
Fruit:- Dry, membranous, indehiscent or dehiscing transversely. Seeds vertically
compressed.
Key features:-
1) Filaments free.
2) Fruit with 1 seed
Genus:- ARTHROCNEMUM
General description:- Articulate, glabrous, dwarf shrubs.
Leaves:- Opposite, scale-like, the bases of each pair amplexicaul, fused to form a
segment.
Flowers:- Inflorescence spicate, segmented; each fertile segment composed of two
3-flowered cymes immersed in the pair of bracts arising from the node above; the
flowers of each cyme more or less equal in site, the central distinctly separating the
lateral. Perianth-segments usually 4. Stamens 2.
Key features:-
1) Perennial, usually shrubs or small trees, with many non-flowering branches.
2) Opposite pairs of bracts connate to form a segment.
Comments:-
The majority of the species are adapted to living in saline habitats (halophytes) or
growing in waste places (ruderals). The family is particularly predominant in
maritime habitats, and in the steppe and semi-desert regions of S.E. Europe.
Genus:- ATRIPLEX / HALIMIONE Including
Group Atriplex prostrata
General description:- Annuals or small shrubs; glabrous or farinose
Leaves:- Flat.
Flower:- Usually unisexual. Male flowers with 5 perianth-segments and 5 stamens.
Female flowers without perianth but with 2 large persistent bracteoles, free or
connate to half-way; rarely some female flowers with 4- or 5-lobed perianth; stigmas
2.
Fruit:- Seeds vertical, often dimorphic, rarely some horizontal.
Key features:-
1) Plant glabrous or farinose
2) Bracteoles free, at least in the upper 1/2
3) Male flowers mostly 5-merous,
5) Female bracteoles without subtending bract.
Group:- Atriplex prostrata
General description:- Erect or procumbent annuals farinose when young.
Stems:- Up to 100 cm, strongly ridged.
Leaves:- Lower up to 10 x 7 cm.
Flowers:- Inflorescence paniculate or spicate. Bracteoles smooth or tuberculate
dorsally. Seeds dimorphic; the ' small ' seeds 1-2 mm, black, smooth, the 'large'
seeds 2-3 mm, brown, reticulate-rugose.
A difficult group not yet fully understood. The evidence available indicates that all
the species within the group are interfertile, and many populations are made up of
plants variously intermediate between two or more of the species. It is, therefore,
often impossible to identify individual plants with certainty.
1) Bracteoles entire or dentate.
2) At least some bracteoles stalked.
3) Bracteoles sessile, sometimes cuneate.
4) Lower leaves truncate at base.
Genus:- BETA
General description:- Annual, biennial or perennial, subfleshy herbs with a
fusiform or much swollen taproot.
Leaves:- Flat, more or less entire, alternate, petiolate, large.
Flower:- Inflorescence paniculate or spike-like, bracteate Bracteoles 2-3, reduced
or absent. Flower: hermaphrodite, solitary or clustered in axils of the bracts.
Perianth segments 5, connate in the lower half; bases persistent, indurate,
surrounding the fruit. Stamens 5, inserted on the glandular disc. Ovary semi-inferior,
sunken into the base of the perianth; stigmas 3, sessile.
Fruit:- Often adhering together by the swollen perianth and receptacle, indehiscent
or dehiscence circumscissile. Seed horizontal; embryo annular or curved perisperm
copious.
Key features:-
1) Perianth-segments without appendages, or vertically keeled or winged.
2) Ovary semi-inferior, connate with the swollen receptacle in fruit.
Genera: CHENOPODIUM - CHENOPODIASTRUM
General description:- Annual, rarely perennial herbs, glabrous, pubescent,
glandular or farinose.
Leaves:- Alternate, flat.
Flowers:- Hermaphrodite and female, usually in cymes, variously arranged.
Bracteoles absent. Perianth-segments 2-5, more or less unaltered in fruit, rarely
becoming fleshy; stamens 1-5; stigmas 2(-5).
Fruit:- Seeds usually horizontal.
Key features:-
1) Flowers hermaphrodite, sometimes some female.
2) Perianth-segments equal.
3) Lower leaves elliptical to ovate or triangular.
4) Inflorescence of numerous dichasial cymes.
5) Plant without spinose branches, sometimes with spine-tipped leaves and bracts.
6) Leaves flat.
7) Plant with yellow or brownish glands or glandular hairs.
Genus;- DYSPHANIA
General description:- Annual, rarely perennial herbs, glabrous, pubescent,
glandular or farinose.
Leaves:- Alternate, flat.
Flowers:- Hermaphrodite and female, usually in cymes, variously arranged.
Bracteoles absent. Perianth-segments 2-5, more or less unaltered in fruit, rarely
becoming fleshy; stamens 1-5; stigmas 2(-5).
Fruit:- Seeds usually horizontal.
Key features:-
1) Flowers hermaphrodite, sometimes some female.
2) Perianth-segments equal.
3) Lower leaves elliptical to ovate or triangular.
4) Inflorescence of numerous dichasial cymes.
5) Plant without spinose branches, sometimes with spine-tipped leaves and bracts.
6) Leaves flat.
7) Plant with yellow or brownish glands or glandular hairs.
Genera:- SALICORNIA /SARCOCORNIA Including:-
Sect. SALICORNIA
Group Salicornia europaea
General description:- Annual, articulate herbs.
Leaves:- Opposite, scale-like, the bases of each pair amplexicaul, fused to form a
segment.
Flowers:- Inflorescence spicate, segmented; Cymes (1-)3-flowered, connate with
and completely immersed in the bract of the segment, the flowers arranged in a
triangle, the lateral flowers usually meeting below the central. Perianth 3- or 4-
lobed. Stamens 1 or 2.
Fruits:- Seeds with thin membranous testa; endosperm very sparse.
All species occur in saline habitats, and it is possible that immersion in salt water
is essential for their growth.
Sect. SALICORNIA
Flowers:- Cymes usually 3-flowered. Lateral flowers usually distinctly smaller than
the central. Stamens usually 1, rarely 0 or 2; anthers 0·2-0·5 mm.
Fruits:- Seeds 1-1·7 mm. Diploid.
Salicornia europaea group
General description:- Plants usually red or purple in fruit; the uppermost primary
branches straight, making an acute angle (usually less than 45°) with the main
stem; terminal spike with 3-12(-22) fertile segments; fertile segments with convex
sides,
Flowers:- Lateral flowers of each cyme usually distinctly smaller than the central
flower; flowers often cleistogamous, the anthers usually dehiscing before exsertion,
or not exserted and persisting in the perianth.
1) Cymes 3-flowered.
2) Infructescence not disarticulating.
3) Anthers 0·2-0·5 mm, often not exserted; fertile segments with convex sides.
4) Lateral flowers usually distinctly smaller than the central.
Genus:- SALSOLA
General description:- Annuals or dwarf shrubs; glabrous or pubescent.
Leaves:- Filiform or semi-cylindrical, alternate or opposite.
Flowers:- Hermaphrodite, with 2 conspicuous bracteoles. Perianth-segments 5 (3
outer and 2 inner), usually developing a transverse wing dorsally in fruit. Stamens 5.
Stigmas 2(3).
Fruit:- Seeds usually horizontal.
Most species are restricted to more or less saline, sandy habitats, either maritime
or in arid regions inland. A large proportion is essentially Asiatic, and occurs only
on the extreme S.E. margin of Europe.
Measurements of the perianth in fruit include the wings.
Key features:-
1) Leaves mostly opposite, semi-cylindrical or oblong, apex obtuse or mucronulate.
2) Leaves not more than 8 mm, filiform or scale-like.
3) Perianth-segments ± equal;
stamens usually 3-5.
4) Flowers (at least the outer ones in each cyme) with 2 conspicuous bracteoles.
5) Flowers solitary all with bracteoles.
Genus;- SUAEDA
General description:- Annual or perennial herbs or small shrubs, glabrous or
farinose.
Leaves:- Usually alternate, semi-cylindrical or flat.
Flowers:- Hermaphrodite and female, solitary or in few-flowered cymes; bracteoles
2, minute. Perianth-segments 5, fleshy, sometimes with a small tubercle, horn, or
narrow transverse wing dorsally in fruit. Stamens 5. Stigmas 2 or 3(-5).
Fruit:- Seeds vertical or horizontal.
1) Plant glabrous, papillose or farinose.
2) Perianth-segments of the lower flowers keeled, the upper narrowly winged in fruit,
the wings free.
3) Flowers with minute bracteoles.
4) Perianth fleshy, the segments all ± equal.
5) Embryo spiral.
