Annual or perennial herbs or shrubs, usually succulent ana 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, page 578and orache. Many of the species are common weeds of cultivation, and several of these have become naturalised in New Zealand. Of the 6 indigenous genera, 5 are widely spread in temperate and tropical climates, the remaining one (Rhagodia) is confined to Australia and New Zealand.

A. Stems leafy, not jointed. Stamens 3–5.		Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual. Perianth hardly enlarged in fruit. Fruit a berry. Embryo annular	1. Rhagodia.
Flowers usually hermaphrodite. Perianth hardly enlarged in fruit. Fruit a dry utricle. Embryo annular	2. Chenopodium.
Flowers unisexual; females enclosed within 2 bracts which are much enlarged in fruit. Embryo annular	3. Atriplex,
Leaves fleshy, semiterete. Perianth simply enlarged and fleshy in fruit. Embryo spiral	5. SuÆda.
Leaves fleshy, pungent-pointed. Perianth enlarged and winged in fruit. Embryo spiral	6. Salsola.
B. Stems jointed, leafless. Stamens 1 or 2.
Flowers sunk in cavities between the joints	4. Salicornia.