Suaeda Scop.

Scientific Description

Common name. Seablites. Family Chenopodiaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Shrubs (small), or herbs. Plants succulent; unarmed. Annual, or biennial, or perennial (often glaucous). Leaves cauline. Plants with a basal concentration of leaves, or with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves. Stems not ‘jointed’. Young stems cylindrical (ass.). Leaves minute to large; alternate; spiral, or distichous; fleshy; sessile; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades entire; solid; semi-terete; linear; attenuate at the base, or cuneate at the base, or rounded at the base. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins entire. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hydathodes present, or absent. Hairs present, or absent (sparsely puberulous). Extra-floral nectaries absent.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite, or functionally male and functionally female, or functionally male, or functionally female, or hermaphrodite, functionally male, and functionally female (etc.). Unisexual flowers present, or absent. Plants hermaphrodite, or monoecious, or andromonoecious, or gynomonoecious, or dioecious, or polygamomonoecious.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary (rarely), or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in glomerules, or in fascicles (or clusters or 1–3 or more flowers). The terminal inflorescence unit cymose. Inflorescences axillary. Flowers sessile; bracteate (2 or 3 small scarious bracts subtend flowers); bracteolate (2 or 3 small, scarious, scale-like bracteoles subtend clusters); minute, or small; regular; cyclic. Hypogynous disk present, or absent. Perianth sepaline; 5; 1 -whorled; joined (imbricate); fleshy, or non-fleshy; persistent; accrescent, or non-accrescent. Calyx present; not replaced by accrescent bracteoles; 5; gamosepalous; blunt-lobed; imbricate; urceolate (depressed globular); fleshy, or non-fleshy; persistent (in the fruit); accrescent. The fruiting calyx not berrylike; wingless, spineless and without tubercles. Calyx lobes broad lobes. Corolla absent. Fertile stamens present, or absent (from female flowers). Androecial members definite in number. Androecium 5. Androecial members adnate; all equal (ass.); free of one another (ass.); 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5; all more or less similar in shape (ass.); isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous (hypogynous). Anthers bent inwards in bud; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; tetrasporangiate. Fertile gynoecium present, or absent (from male flowers). Gynoecium (2–)5 carpelled. The pistil 1 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious to synstylovarious; superior, or partly inferior. Ovary unilocular; 1 locular; sessile (ass.). Gynoecium stylate. Styles 2–3 (rarely more); partially joined. Stigmas 2–3. Placentation basal. Ovules in the single cavity 1; pendulous, or ascending; non-arillate; campylotropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit fleshy, or non-fleshy (pericarp thin); indehiscent; capsular-indehiscent, or a berry; 1 celled. Gynoecia of adjoining flowers combining to form a multiple fruit, or not forming a multiple fruit. Fruit 1 seeded. Seeds more or less non-endospermic. Perisperm absent. Cotyledons 2. Embryo coiled (in a flat spiral).

Etymology. From the Arabic name of S. vera.