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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
5. SuÆda, Forsk
5. SuÆda, Forsk.
Glabrous herbs or undershrubs. Leaves alternate, fleshy, thick or terete, entire. Flowers minute, sessile or nearly so, axillary, solitary or clustered, usually hermaphrodite; bracts and bracteoles minute, scarious. Perianth short, fleshy, 5-lobed or -partite; lobes or segments equal or unequal, without appendages or more or less carinate or crested or slightly winged, enclosing the fruit. Stamens 5, short. Styles 2–5, short, subulate, recurved. Utricle included in the perianth, membranous or spongy; pericarp thin, usually free from the seed. Seed horizontal, vertical or oblique; testa crustaceous or coriaceous; albumen wanting or scanty; embryo flat, spirally rolled.
A widely distributed genus of about 40 species, usually found on sea-shores or in saline places. The single species found in New Zealand has a wide range in most temperate and tropical countries.
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S. maritima, Dum. Fl. Belg. 22. — A much-branched glabrous erect or diffuse herb, varying in height from a few inches to nearly 2 ft.; stem often hard and almost woody at the base. Leaves sessile, ¼–½ in. long or more, linear, semi-terete or almost cylindric, acute or obtuse, thick and succulent. Flowers small, greenish, solitary or 2–4 together in the axils of the leaves, each flower usually with 1 bract and 2 bracteoles. Fruiting-perianth depressed, about 1/12 in. diam., 5-lobed; lobes ovate-rounded, appressed to the utricle. Utricle membranous. Seed horizontal or very rarely vertical, dark red-brown, shining.—Raoul, Choix, 43; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 214; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 231; Benth. Fl. Austral. v. 206. Chenopodium maritimum, Linn. Sp. Plant. 221; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 181; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 364. Salsola fruticosa, Forst. Prodr. n. 131 (not of Linn.). page 587North and South Islands: Not uncommon in salt marshes from the North Cape to Foveaux Strait. December–March. The Australian and New Zealand plant is sometimes separated from the northern form under the name of S. australis, Moq., on account of its more suffrutescent habit, but it is very variable in this respect. |