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Electronic Flora of South Australia family Fact Sheet

Chenopodiaceae

Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Herbs or shrubs, glabrous or pubescent, sometimes glandular; leaves usually alternate, simple, often succulent, exstipulate, in the Salicornieae (samphires) opposite and reduced to small lobes at the apex of jointed internodes.

Inflorescence of compact or open cymes or panicles, or reduced to solitary axillary flowers; flowers small, bisexual or unisexual; perianth of 1 whorl, 5-lobed, or reduced to 4--1 lobes; in fruit sometimes succulent or woody, often enlarged and developing wings, spines or tubercles; stamens opposite and equal in number to the perianth lobes or fewer, hypogynous or attached to the wall of the perianth; anthers bilocular, dehiscing by longitudinal slits; ovary superior (semi-inferior in Beta), unilocular; stigmas usually 2 or 3; ovule solitary, basal, campylotropous to amphitropous.

Fruit with a membranous crustaceous or succulent pericarp; seed often lenticular; testa membranous to crustaceous; embryo straight, curved, horseshoe-shaped, annular or spiral; albumen (perisperm) absent to abundant.

Distribution:  Cosmopolitan with over 100 genera and 1,500 species; frequently found in saline environments.

Biology: Cultivars derived from Beta vulgaris L. provide beetroot, sugarbeet, etc., while Spinacia oleracea L. has produced spinach.

Key to Genera:
1. Plant with obvious leaves; branches not articulate
 
2. Leaves flat, often broad, if terete then with mealy hairs when young
 
3. Plant glabrous; fruiting perianths hard, united in clusters; ovary semi-inferior
BETA 2.
3. Plant glabrous, mealy, pilose, or glandular; ovary superior
 
4. Plant mealy when young; flowers unisexual; male flowers with a 5-lobed perianth and 5 stamens; female flowers lacking a perianth but surrounded by a pair of bracteoles that may be free of fused, often inflated or spongy
ATRIPLEX 1.
4. Plant variously pubescent or glabrous; all flowers with a perianth, not surrounded by bracteoles
 
5. Plants shrubby, predominantly dioecious; pericarp succulent
RHAGODIA 17.
5. Plants herbaceous or weakly woody; flowers polygamous or bisexual; pericarp very rarely succulent
 
6. Herb with a basal rosette of leaves; perianth-segments 4, cartilaginous in fruit
SCLEROBLITUM 20.
6. Plants without a basal rosette
 
7. Plant glandular-pubescent; perianth-segments 1-4; stamens 1 or 2; embryo lateral, horizontal or basal
DYSPHANIA 5.
7. Plant glabrous, pubescent or mealy, if glandular-pubescent then with other characters not combined
 
8. Perianth-segments 5; stamens 1-3; seed horizontal; perennial herbs with mealy indumentum
EINADIA 6.
8. Perianth-segments 1-5; stamens 1-5; seed horizontal or vertical; mostly annual herbs (rarely perennials), glabrous or with mealy or glandular indumentum
 
9. Perianth-segments (in lateral flowers) 1; stamen 1; sparsely mealy herb
MONOLEPIS 13.
9. Perianth-segments 3-5; stamens 1-5; herb or rarely perennial with mealy or glandular indumentum, or glabrous
CHENOPODIUM 3.
2. Leaves narrow, usually subterete; hairs (if present) simple, bifurcate or branched (neither glandular nor mealy)
 
10. Flowers and fruits fused in axillary clusters of 2 or more
DISSOCARPUS 4.
10. Flowers and fruits solitary or if in pairs then not fused together
 
11. Fruiting perianth without obvious appendages
 
12. Flowers bibracteolate; embryo spirally coiled
SUAEDA 25.
12. Flowers without bracteoles; embryo curved or annular
 
13. Fruiting perianth succulent, berry-like, split longitudinally to the base
ENCHYLAENA 7.
13. Fruiting perianth dry or, if succulent, not berry-like and not split to the base
 
14. Fruiting perianth dry, subglobular
OSTEOCARPUM 15.
14. Fruiting perianth dry or slightly succulent, ovoid to urceolate
THRELKELDIA 27.
11. Fruiting perianth with 1 or more wings, spines or tubercles, not succulent
 
15. Fruiting perianth with erect wing or wings
 
16. Both horizontal and vertical wings present
MAIREANA 11.
16. Only vertical wing or wings present
OSTEOCARPUM 15.
15. Fruiting perianth without erect wings
 
17. Horizontal wing or wings present on the fruiting perianth
 
18. Flowers subtended by a pair of prominent spinescent bracteoles; embryo spirally coiled
SALSOLA 18.
18. Bracteoles, if present, minute; embryo annular
 
19. Fruiting perianth hemispherical, glabrous; apex truncate extending into a hard narrow 5-angled wing
SCLEROCHLAMYS 21.
19. Fruiting perianth lenticular to turbinate or globose, with 5 horizontal wings or a simple annular horizontal wing
MAIREANA 11.
17. Spines or tubercles present on the fruiting perianth
 
20. Plant densely stellate- or dendritic-tomentose; leaves flattened
EREMOPHEA 8.
20. Plant with simple or bifurcate hairs (if dendritic then leaves terete) or glabrous
 
21. Perianth densely woolly; appendages in two series, 5 erect and 5 horizontal
ERIOCHITON 9.
21. Perianth appendages in one series
 
22. Fruiting perianth hard, subglobular, glabrouss, with c. 11 very short radiating spines arising from a narrow horizontal wing
STELLIGERA 24.
22. Fruiting perianth glabrous or hairy, with 1-6 spines, tubercles, or other processes
 
23. Perianth appendages 3-5, soft, subcylindrical, woolly, arising from the base of the perianth lobes
MALACOCERA 12.
23. Perianth appendages of spines or tubercles.
 
24. Fruiting perianth cylindrical, with 5 short spines arising from the base of the perianth lobes; the spines sometimes united into an apical cup-shaped structure
NEOBASSIA 14.
24. Fruiting perianth variously shaped; spines or tubercles 1-6, arising from between the perianth lobes
SCLEROLAENA 22.
1. Plant apparently leafless or with opposite very reduced leaves; branchlets made up of succulent internodes
 
25. Perianth truncate or rounded at the apex, with an upper (adaxial) lobe overlapping the 2 lateral lobes; stamens 2; embryo horseshoe-shaped; albumen absent; flowers in opposite axillary clusters of 5-12
SARCOCORNIA 19.
25. Perianth lacking an upper lobe; stamen 1; seed with abundant albumen; flowers in opposite axillay clusters of 3 (rarely 5 or 7)
 
26. Lateral flowers of the triads male, central flower bisexual
 
27. Leaf-lobes prominent, fleshy, divaricate; embryo annular
PACHYCORNIA 16.
27. Leaf-lobes insignificant; embryo straight or curved
SCLEROSTEGIA 23.
26. Flowers all bisexual or all unisexual
 
28. Opposite bracts of the inflorescence free from each other
 
29. Spikes terminal
HALOSARCIA 10.
29. Spikes lateral, sessile
TECTICORNIA 26.
28. Opposite bracts of the inflorescence united
HALOSARCIA 10.

Author: Prepared by P. G. Wilson


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