Page:Flora Australiensis Volume 5.djvu/171

Chenopodium.] XCVI. CHENOPODIACEAE. 159 with a few males intermixed. Perianth-segments broad, thick, concave, slightly imbricate in the bud. Stamens 5, shortly exserted, the filaments flat and glabrous. Ovary ovoid, erect, the styles short, rather thick, united at the base. Fruit enclosed in the unaltered perianth. Pericarp membranous. Seed erect, flat; embryo circinate, the radicle usually inferior. — Rhagodia nitrariacca, F. Muell. in Trans. Phil. Inst. Vict. ii. 73.

N. Australia. N.W. coast, Bynoe, the specimens in bud and in some measure doubtful.

N. S. Wales. Darling river, Victorian Expedition, Mrs. Ford. Victoria. Murray and Avoca rivers, F. Mueller.

W. Australia. Swan river, Drummond.

some other specimens referred to this species by F. Mueller appear to me to belong to Rhagodia spinescens, but are too young to determine. In all those which I have quoted as typical, I have uniformly found the seed, either already enlarged after flowering or quite ripe, erect and enclosed in a thin dry pericarp.

S ECT. 2. C HENOPODIATRUM, Moq. — Herbs, mealy-white or glabrous. Flower-clusters in terminal or axillary spikes or panicles. Seeds all or mostly horizontal.

2. C. auricomum, ''Lindl. in Mitch. Trop. Austr.'' 94. Erect and probably tall, more or less white or hoary all over, apparently herbaceous and not spinescent. Leaves on rather long petioles, ovate or oblong, very obtuse, entire or rarely hastate with prominent basal lobes, mostly ¾ to l½ in. long. Flowers in little dense globular clusters along the branches of a terminal panicle, sometimes distinct and rather distant, sometimes crowded into dense spikes. Perianth-segments broad, concave, closing over the fruit. Stamens 5, shortly exserted. Ovary small, globular, contracted into a long neck or united base of the styles. Pericarp depressed-globose, membranous. Seed very flat, horizontal. Embryo annular. — [http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/159455 Moq. in DC. Prod. xiii. ii. 460].

N. Australia. Upper Victoria river and Sturt's Creek, F. Mueller ; Gulf of Carpentaria, Landsborough ; in the interior, M'Douall Stuart's Expedition.

Queensland. Narran river, Mitchell; Curriwinigbie, Dalton ; Suttor and Bowen rivers, Bowman.

N. S. Wales. Darling river and Duroodoo, Victorian Expedition.

This species undoubtedly comes near to some forms of C. album, differing in its entire more tomentose leaves and larger flowers. It appears to be still more closely allied to and perhaps not really distinct from the East Asiatic C. acuminatum, Willd.

C. furfuraceum, [http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/159061 Moq. in DC. Prod. xiii. ii. 64], from the Straits of Entrecasteaux,

Tasmania, is unknown to me. The character given agrees with that of C. auricomum, of which however I have seen no specimen from Tasmania, nor from the south coast of the continent of Australia.

3. C. album, Linn. ; [http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/159067 ''Moq. in DC. Prod.'' xiii. ii. 70]. A tough annual usually erect, 1 to 2 ft. high, of a pale green or more or less mealy- white, especially the flowers and the under side of the leaves. Leaves petiolate, the lower ones ovate or rhomboidal, more or less sinuate- toothed or angular, the upper ones usually narrow and entire. Clusters of flowers in short dense or interrupted spikes, simple or slightly branched, the lower ones axillary, the upper ones or sometimes nearly