Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/627

Suæda.] 

Herbs or shrubs; branches not jointed. Leaves alternate, sessile, narrow-linear or terete, often pungent. Flowers small, solitary or fascicled, axillary, hermaphrodite, 2-bracteolate. Perianth 4–5-partite; segments concave, thickened down the back, enlarged in fruit and furnished with a horizontal wing or protuberance, completely enclosing the utricle. Stamens 5, rarely fewer. Styles 2–3, subulate, erect or recurved. Utricle ovoid or orbicular; pericarp fleshy or membranous, not adherent to the seed. Seed usually horizontal, orbicular; testa membranous; albumen wanting; embryo spirally coiled.

1. S. Kali, ''Linn. Sp. Plant.'' 222.—A rigid procumbent or diffusely branciied herb 6–18 in. high; stem stout, grooved and angled, scabrid-pubescent or almost glabrous; branches spreading, often striped. Leaves spreading and recurved, variable in size, ¼–1 in. long or more, ovate-subulate with a rigid pungent point, sheathing at the base, thick and fleshy, semi-terete; the uppermost shorter and broader, almost triangular. Flowers solitary and sessile in the axils of the leaves, sometimes appearing clustered from the reduction of axillary flowering-branches, each flower with 2 opposite bracteoles; floral leaves and bracteoles all pungent. Fruiting-perianth about ¼ in. diam., shorter than the bracteoles, 5-partite; segments rigid and cartilaginous at the base, furnished above with 5 broad spreading scarious wings.—''Benth. Fl. Austral.'' v. 207. S. australis, ''R. Br. Prodr. 411; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 216; Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 232.





Herbs or shrubs or woody climbers. Leaves alternate or rarely opposite, simple, entire or serrulate. Stipules thin, scarious or membranous, forming a sheath round the stem. Flowers small, regular, usually hermaphrodite, herbaceous or coloured, often jointed on the pedicel, clustered in the axils of the leaves or in