HALIMIONE PORTULACOIDES

Family:- AMARANTHACEAE

Common Name:- Sea purslane

Synonyms:- Atriplex portulacoides, Obione portulacoides.

Meaning:- Halimione (Gr) Daughter-of-the-Sea.

Halimi- (Gr) Orache-like, with silver-grey rounded leaves.

Portulacoides (L) Resembling portulaca.

General description:- Dioecious or monoecious much-branched subshrub.

Stems:-

a) 20-100 cm.

b) pale, angular.

c) prostrate-decumbent to suberect.

d) usually rooting at the nodes.

Leaves:-

a) 1.5-5 x 0.3-1.2 cm.

b) opposite (alternate in the upper part of the flowering stem).

c) almost stalkless or short-stalked (subsessile to shortly petiolate).

d) elliptic-ovate to oblong-obovate, wedge-shaped (cuneate) to gradually

narrowing (attenuate) at the base, obtuse or subacute, entire.

e) densely covered with scurfy greyish- to silvery-scale (lepidote), somewhat

fleshy.

Flowers:-

1) Inflorescence:

a) 5-10 cm, paniculate.

2) Flowers:

a) in small clusters, male intermixed with female or on separate plants.

3) Bracts:

a) absent.

4) Perianth segments:

a) male flowers 4-5, c. 0.8 x 0.4 rn, oblong, united (connate) at the base.

5) Stamens:

a) 4-5.

b) filaments hairless (glabrous), c. 0.8 mm.

c) anthers yellow.

6) Bracteoles:

a) 2-4(-5) x 3.8-5 mm.

b) united to the middle or almost to the apex.

c) deltoid, 3-lobed, somewhat thickened-fleshy, median lobe longer than the two

laterals, with or without dorsal rounded tubercles or appendages.

Fruit:-

1) Seed:

a) c. 2 mm diam.

b) vertical, lenticular.

c) testa lack, shiny, minutely pitted.

Key features:-

1) Bracteoles connate almost to the apex in fruit.

Habitat:- Rocky and sandy beaches, saltmarshes, lagoons, ruderal habitats

generally by the sea, occasionally to 130 m.

Distribution:- Throughout Greece. Coasts of W Europe an the Mediterranean

region inland on saline soil in Anatolia and Palestine. Rare on Crete known onl from

a few coastal locations.

Flowering time:- July-Oct(-Nov).

Photos by:- An Other