Common Name: SALTWORT FAMILY
Habit: Perennial herb, subshrub, salt-tolerant; dioecious [monoecious]. Leaf: simple, opposite, sessile, +- cylindric or +- 3-angled, narrowly elliptic to narrowly oblanceolate or linear, fleshy, base with triangular appendage, margins entire; stipules minute. Inflorescence: dense, cone- or spike-like, axillary, +- sessile; flowers unisexual. Staminate Flower: 8--12, +- free, 4-ranked, subtended by +- widely ovate bract and involucre- or sac-like bractlets; calyx +- bilateral, cup- or bell-shaped, blunt-lobed; petals 4(5), alternate stamens; stamens 4(5), > petals, anthers opening by longitudinal slits. Pistillate Flower: (2)4--12(24), free or fused, subtended by small bractlet, << flower; perianth 0; ovary superior, fleshy, chambers 4, ovule 1 per chamber, stigma 2-lobed, +- spheric, sessile. Fruit: drupe or drupe-like aggregate, floating. Seed: 1--4. Chromosomes: n=11.
Genera In Family: 1 genus, 2 species: coastal, tropics, subtropical America, Pacific, Australia. Note: Staminate perianth variously interpreted as tepals, petals, or staminodes.
eFlora Treatment Author: Steve Boyd & William J. Stone
Scientific Editor: Douglas H. Goldman, Bruce G. Baldwin.