Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/617

Alternanthera.] base into a membranous cup, with or without intervening staminodia; anthers 1-celled. Ovary orbicular or obovoid; style short or almost wanting; stigma capitellate or rarely 2-fid; ovule solitary, pendulous from an elongated basal funicle. Utricle compressed, ovoid or orbicular or obcordate; margins often thickened or winged. Seed vertical, lenticular; testa coriaceous.

1. A. sessilis, R. Br. Prodr. 417.—A prostrate or decumbent herb. Stems numerous from the root, branched, creeping and rooting, sometimes ascending at the tips, 4–18 in. long, glabrous or with 2 opposite pubescent lines. Leaves variable in size, ½–3 in. long, linear-lanceolate to linear-oblong or oblong-obovate, obtuse or acute, narrowed to the base, entire or obscurely denticulate, glabrous or pubescent in the axils. Flowers aggregated in dense axillary clusters ¼–⅓ in. diam. minute, whitish, about $1⁄12$ in. long. Perianth-segments glabrous, rigid, acute. Stamens 2–3. Utricle broadly obcordate, with broad corky wings.—''Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 212; Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 234. A. denticulata, ''R. Br. Prodr. 417; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 367; Raoul, Choix, 43; Benth. Fl. Austral.'' v. 249.





Annual or perennial herbs or shrubs, usually succulent and fleshy, sometimes covered with a mealy scurf. Leaves alternate or very rarely opposite, simple, sometimes wanting, exstipulate. Flowers small, regular, hermaphrodite or unisexual, often dimorphic, variously disposed but usually sessile and clustered, clusters often aggregated into dense or interrupted spikes or panicles. Bracts often wanting, when present herbaceous, not scarious. Perianth inferior, 3–5-lobed or -cleft, herbaceous, persistent, imbricate. Stamens 4–5, rarely fewer, hypogynous or perigynous; filaments subulate or filiform; anthers 2-celled. Ovary superior, 1-celled; style-branches 2–3, either free or united at the base; ovule solitary, basal or lateral, amphitropous. Fruit usually a utricle, rarely a berry, enclosed in the persistent perianth, which is often enlarged or fleshy. Seed horizontal or vertical, testa crustaceous; albumen present and farinaceous or wanting; embryo curved or annular or spiral.

A widely spread order, found in all climates, but most plentiful in maritime or saline localities. Genera 80; species between 500 and 600, often difficult of discrimination. The order includes the sugar-beet and mangold, two plants of great commercial importance; also the garden-beet, the spinach,