Perennial herbs or subshrubs, glabrous, appearing leafless; branches made up of cylindrical segments (articles), cup-shaped or 2-lobed at apex, succulent, usually green or greenish to reddish; sclereids usually present in palisade tissue
Inflorescence
a terminal spike-like thyrse, consisting of 3-12-flowered cymules, sessile in axils of bracts; bracts united in opposite pairs
Flowers
minute, apparently embedded in the spongy mesophyll of the succulent axis, bisexual or unisexual by abortion, or plant dioecious
Perianth
succulent, gamotepalous; apex truncate, exposed, the orifice a vertical slit; lobes 3 or 4, 2 lateral and 1 small, semicircular outer adaxial lobe
Stamens
1 or 2 per flower, on abaxial and adaxial side of ovary
Fruiting
perianth spongy; pericarp membranous
Seed
ovate to orbicular; testa weak, papillose or with slender hairs; endosperm 0; embryo horseshoe-shaped
x = 9 (high polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Sarcocornia
J.A.Scott
Scott: 366 (1977)
Wilson: 278 (1984)
Brenan: 149 (1988)
O'Callaghan: 433 (1992)
Salicornia
L. in part
C.H.Wright: 449 (1910)
Arthrocnemum
not of Moq.
Moquin-Tandon (1840) in strict sense
Ungern-Sternberg: 36 (1866) in part
Baker & Clarke: 85 (1909) in part
Ulbrich: 379 (1934) in part
Brenan: 18 (1954) in part
Moss: 4 (1954) in part
Tölken: 273 (1967) in part
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Species ± 15, in Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America, 3 native to Australia
Southern Africa
: Species 9, coast of Namibia, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal
References:
BAKER, J.G. & CLARKE, C.B. 1909.
Chenopodiaceae
.
Flora of tropical Africa
6,1
BRENAN, J.P.M. 1954.
Flora of tropical East Africa
.
Chenopodiaceae
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