Flora of North America species comparison

fibrous, taprooted, sometimes fusiform or bulbous, fleshy and thickened in Beta.

erect, intricately branched, mostly 1–3.5(–4.5) dm.

sometimes succulent and apparently jointed, or with slippery and aromatic bark, sometimes spiny, alternate or opposite;

pubescence silvery, sometimes stellate or glandular, often scurfy from inflated salt glands that senesce into white flakes.

proximalmost blade linear to linear-lanceolate or linear-elliptic, mainly 5–25 × 1–4 mm, tapering to slender base, densely grayish scurfy.

simple, usually alternate, occasionally opposite, lacking stipules, petiolate or sessile, sometimes reduced to small scales, or fleshy;

blade linear to broadly triangulate in outline, margins entire to serrate, serrate-dentate, or lobed.

flowers solitary or clustered in axillary or terminal glomerules or in short, cylindric spikes;

bracts absent or 1–5, deciduous or persistent, of various shapes.

bisexual or unisexual, uniseriate, radially or rarely bilaterally symmetric;

bracteoles absent or 1–5, connate basally, green;

perianth segments 5, sometimes 1 or absent, green, inconspicuous, fleshy in Salicornia and Sarcocornia, strongly imbricate in Nitrophila;

petals absent;

stamens absent or 1–5, usually as many as and opposite perianth lobes;

pistils absent or (1–)2(–3);

styles 1–3, sometimes with stylopodium;

ovary usually superior, half-inferior in Sarcobatus, inferior and connate with receptacle in fruit in Beta, 1-locular with single, basally attached ovule.

mainly confined to distal axils.

usually 1, campylotropous, bitegmic, crassinucellate.

1 per flower, black, brown, reddish brown, or mixture, flattened vertically or rounded, margins winged or not winged, surfaces smooth and shiny or reticulate, regulate, verrucate, prickly, or indistinct, morphology variable and strongly influenced by plant photoperiod;

seed coat smooth, striate, or verrucate when pericarp is removed;

embryo large, curved to annular or spirally coiled;

radicle position median or basal, ascending or pointing outward;

endosperm usually digested by developing embryo and food storage taken over by perisperm.

bracteoles oblong-cuneate to obovate in profile, (1.8–)2–2.3 × 1.1–1.5 mm, terminal tooth reduced to mere cusp between larger lateral ones.

structures: bracteoles or fruiting bracts brown, black, or reddish brown, monomorphic or sometimes dimorphic;

perianth segments deciduous or persistent in mature fruits and of various shapes and ornamentation, accrescent around fruits;

fruits achenes or utricles, vertical or horizontal within perianth parts, pericarp (ovary wall) adherent or nonadherent, chartaceous or papery, sometimes reticulate, mottled or smooth.

common.

= 9.