-3 [ 1691 ]
S A L I C O R N I A radicans.
Creeping-rooted Classwort.
MONANDRIA Monogynia.
G en. C har. Calyx swelling, undivided. Petals none.
Stamens 1 or 2. Seed ] , enclosed in the calyx.
Spec. C har. Stem woody; procumbent and taking
root at the base. Joints compressed, notched; interstices
nearly cylindrical. Spikes oblong. Style
deeply divided. Stamens two.
Syn. Salicornia herbacea (3. Sm. FI. B rit. 2.
S. erecta, foliis brevibus, cupressiformis. D ill., in R ail
Syn. 137.
S. europsea/3. Huds. 1.
W e first received this plant in September 1798 from the
Rev. Charles Sutton, D .D ., who found it on the sea coast at
Holm Norfolk. Mr. W . Borrer has since sent it from the
harbour at Shoreham, Sussex, and we have received information
of it from Weymouth, and other places. I alluded to it
as a distinct species in v. 6. p. 415, but in the FI. Brit, was
induced to refer it to the common annual kind as a variety.
On mature consideration I now resume my first opinion.
It grows in mud, and appears to be a perennial plant, though
Professor Afzelius thought it biennial, and it flowers in September.
The stem is shrubby, erect or somewhat procumbent,
but remarkable for creeping and taking frequent root at the
base. The interstices of the stem are more slender and cylindrical
than in S. herbacea, FI. Brit, the spikes not so uniform
in thickness throughout. We have always found 2 stamens to
each germen. The style is deeply divided into 2 or 3 parts, ^ in
which last respect it differs from the real S.fruticosa, of which
we have seen English specimens in Sherard’s herbarium at
Oxford, and the joints of whose spikes are moreover totally
different from these, being longer and the flowers more distant.