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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
6. Salsola, Linn
6. Salsola, Linn.
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.
Species estimated at about 40, widely spread in saline localities, but mainly in temperate regions.
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S. Kali, Linn. Sp. Plant. 222.—A rigid procumbent or diffusely branched 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. Austrac. v. 207. S. australis, R. Br. Prodr. 411; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 216; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 232. North and South Islands: Not uncommon on sandy shores from the North Cape southwards, but probably introduced. December–March. A widely dispersed plant in most temperate and tropical regions, but of very doubtful nativity in New Zealand. It is a true native of Australia, however. |