Page:Flora Australiensis Volume 5.djvu/169

Rhagodia.] XCVI. CHENOPODIACEAE. 157 Barrier Range, Victorian and other Expedltions; Hastings river, Becker; Ballandool river, Locker.

Victoria. Wendu vale, Robertson; Tambo river, F. Mueller; Creswick, Whan.

Tasmania. Derwent river, R. Brown, J. D. Hooker; abundant in plains near. Ross, Guun; S. Esk river, C. Stuart.

S. Australia. Kangaroo island, R. Brown; Murray river, Salt Creek, Port Adelaide, F. Mueller; towards Cooper's Creek, Wheeler, Howitt's Expedition.

12. R. linifolia, R. Br. Prod. 408. A diffuse or procumbent herb or undershrub, more slender even than R. nutans and like that species green or the young shoots very slightly mealy. Leaves alternate, linear or linear-lanceolate, rather acute, contracted into a short petiole, thin and green on both sides, from under ½ in. to nearly 2 in. long. Inflorescence almost filiform, rarely above 1 in. long, simple or slightly branched or forming a slender divaricate leafy panicle. Flowers very small, solitary or in small clusters, the females mostly pediculate. Perianth glabrous. Fruit smaller than in any other species, the pericarp red and pulpy when fresh, thin when dry. — Moq. in DC. Prod. xiii. ii. 49.

Queensland. Broad Sound, R. Brown; Bay of Inlets, Banks and Solander; in the interior, Mitchell; Curriwillighie, Dalton; Darling Downs, Lau; Rockhampton, O'Shanesy.

N. S. Wales. Hunter's river, A. Cunningham; in the interior, Leichhardt; Camden district, Woolls; New England, C. Stuart; Ballandool river, Locker.

2 CHENOPODIUM, Linn.
(Ambrina, Moq., Blitum, Moq. (partly).

Flowers hermaphrodite or rarely polygamous. Perianth herhaceous, deeply divided into 5 or rarely 4 or 8 lobes or segments which are obtuse and concave or rarely acute and erect, scarcely altered or slightly enlarged after flowering. Stamens 5 or fewer, filaments filiform or flattened. Ovary globular or ovoid; styles 2 or rarely 3, usually united at the base. Fruit depressed or ovoid, partially or completely covered by the persistent perianth, pericarp dry, membranous, distinct from or inseparable from the seed. Seed horizontally flattened, or vertical and less compressed; testa crustaceous; embryo circular, enclosing a mealy albumen. — Herbs or rarely shrubs or undershrubs. Leaves alternate, fiat, entire toothed or divided. Flowers small, sessile in clusters, either axillary or in interrupted terminal spikes or panicles.

The genus is widely distributed over the globe, but appears to be really indigenous chiefly in temperate and subtropical regions, some species, including four of the Australian ones, probably of European origin, are amongst the most generally dispersed weeds of cultivation. Of the remaining eight Australian species one is also in New Zealand and New Caledonia, the other seven appear to be endemic although one of them is perhaps too closely connected with an East Asiatic one.

The precise limits to be assigned to the genus are as yet very uncertain. The last four species here included, with the seeds all erect and the inflorescence axillary, are certainly nearly allied to the European Blita originally characterized by the succulent perianth, but recently extended to the majority of Chenopodia with erect seeds. The adoption of the latter character entails however the assigning C. nitrariacea and C.