''Sarcocornia'' is a formerly recognized genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s in the amaranth family,

Amaranthaceae Amaranthaceae is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus ''Amaranthus''. It includes the former goosefoot family Chenopodiaceae and contains about 165 genera and 2,040 species, making it ...

. Species are known commonly as samphires, glassworts, or saltworts. Molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that when separated from ''

Salicornia ''Salicornia'' is a genus of succulent, halophytic (salt tolerant) flowering plants in the family Amaranthaceae that grow in salt marshes, on beaches, and among mangroves. ''Salicornia'' species are native to North America, Europe, Central Asia, ...

'', the genus is paraphyletic, since ''Salicornia'' is embedded within it, and ''Sarcocornia'' has now been merged into a more broadly circumscribed ''Salicornia''. When separated from ''Salicornia'', the genus has a cosmopolitan distribution, and is most diverse in the Cape Floristic Region of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

Description

Species formerly placed in ''Sarcocornia'' are

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wid ...

herbs, subshrubs or shrubs. They are taking an erect or prostrate, creeping form. The new stems are fleshy and divided into joint-like segments. Older stems are woody and not segmented. The oppositely arranged leaves are borne on fleshy, knobby petioles, their base decurrent and connate (thus forming the segments), the blades forming small, triangular tips with narrow scarious margin. Sarcocorniapacifica

The terminal or lateral

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

s are spike-like, made up of joint-like segments with tiny paired cymes emerging from the joints. Each cyme consists of three (rarely five) flowers completely embedded between the bract and immersed in the fleshy tissue of the axis. The flowers of a cyme are arranged in a transverse row, the central flower separating the lateral flowers, with tissue of the axis between them. The hermaphrodite or unisexual flowers are more or less radially symmetric, with a

perianth The perianth (perigonium, perigon or perigone in monocots) is the non-reproductive part of the flower, and structure that forms an envelope surrounding the sexual organs, consisting of the calyx (sepals) and the corolla ( petals) or tepals when ...

of three or four fleshy

tepal A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of very ...

s connate nearly to the apex, one or two stamens, and an ovary with two or three stigmas. The perianth is persistent in fruit. The fruit wall (pericarp) is membranous. The vertical seed is ellipsoid, with light brown, membranous, hairy seed coat, the hairs can be strongly curved, hooked, or conic, straight or slightly curved. The seed contains no perisperm (feeding tissue). The basic

chromosome number Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectivel ...

is x=9. The species are diploid (18 chromosomes), tetraploid (36), hexaploid (54), or octoploid (72).

Taxonomy

The genus ''Sarcocornia'' was first described in 1978 by A J Scott. It separated the perennial species from the closely related annual ''

'' senus stricto, additionally containing some species formerly belonging to the former genus ''Arthrocnemum''. The type species is '' Sarcocornia perennis''. ''Sarcocornia''/''Salicornia'' began to evolve during the middle

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

from ancestors in

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...

, developing four phylogenetic lineages: the first was the Eurasian ''Sarcocornia'' clade, further diversifying into the American ''Sarcocornia'' clade, then the ''Salicornia'' clade, and the South African/Australian ''Sarcocornia'' clade. When ''Salicornia'' is separated from ''Sarcocornia'' to comprise all the annual, more frost tolerant species, the genus ''Sarcocornia'' is paraphyletic, since ''Salicornia'' evolved within ''Sarcocornia''. The prostrate, mat-forming growth seems to have evolved several times independently. It is probably advantageous in habitats with prolonged flooding, high tidal movement and frost. A molecular phylogenetic study in 2017 confirmed the paraphyly of ''Sarcocornia'', and merged the genus into ''Salicornia''.

Selected former species

Accepted names in ''Salicornia'' are taken from Plants of the World Online. *''Sarcocornia alpini'' (Lag.) Rivas-Martınez = '' Salicornia alpini'' *''Sarcocornia ambigua'' (Michx.) M.A.Alonso & M.B.Crespo = '' Salicornia ambigua'' *''Sarcocornia andina'' (Phil.) Freitag, M.A.Alonso & M.B.Crespo = '' Salicornia andina'' *''Sarcocornia blackiana'' (Ulbr.) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia blackiana'' *''Sarcocornia capensis'' (Moss) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia capensis'' *''Sarcocornia carinata'' (Fuente, Rufo & Sánchez Mata) Fuente, Rufo & Sánchez Mata = '' Salicornia alpini'' subsp. ''carinata'' *''Sarcocornia decumbens'' (Tölken) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia decumbens'' *''Sarcocornia decussata'' S.Steffen, Mucina & G.Kadereit = '' Salicornia decussata'' *''Sarcocornia dunensis'' (Moss) S.Steffen, Mucina & G.Kadereit = '' Salicornia dunensis'' *''Sarcocornia freitagii'' S. Steffen, Mucina & G.Kadereit = '' Salicornia helmutii'' *''Sarcocornia fruticosa'' (L.) A.J.Scott = ''

Salicornia fruticosa ''Salicornia fruticosa'', synonym ''Sarcocornia fruticosa'', is a species of glasswort in the family Amaranthaceae (pigweeds). It is native to southern Europe, north Africa, Western Asia and Yemen. It is a halophyte A halophyte is a salt-to ...

'' *''Sarcocornia globosa'' P.G. Wilson = '' Salicornia globosa'' *''Sarcocornia hispanica'' Fuente, Rufo & Sánchez-Mata = '' Salicornia hispanica'' *''Sarcocornia lagascae'' Fuente, Rufo & Sánchez Mata = '' Salicornia lagascae'' *''Sarcocornia littorea'' (Moss) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia littorea'' *''Sarcocornia magellanica'' (Phil.) M.A.Alonso & M.B.Crespo = '' Salicornia magellanica'' *''Sarcocornia mossambicensis'' Brenan = ''

Salicornia mossambicensis ''Salicornia'' is a genus of succulent, halophytic (salt tolerant) flowering plants in the family Amaranthaceae that grow in salt marshes, on beaches, and among mangroves. ''Salicornia'' species are native to North America, Europe, Central Asia, ...

'' *''Sarcocornia mossiana'' (Tölken) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia mossiana'' *''Sarcocornia natalensis'' (Bunge ex Ung.-Sternb.) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia natalensis'' *''Sarcocornia neei'' (Lag.) M.A.Alonso & M.B.Crespo = ''

Salicornia neei ''Salicornia neei'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaranthaceae Amaranthaceae is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus ''Amaranthus''. It includes the former goose ...

'' *''Sarcocornia obclavata'' Yaprak = '' Salicornia obclavata'' *''Sarcocornia pacifica'' (Standl.) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia pacifica'' *''Sarcocornia perennis'' (Miller) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia perennis'' *''Sarcocornia pillansii'' (Moss) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia pillansii'' *''Sarcocornia pruinosa'' Fuente, Rufo & Sánchez-Mata = '' Salicornia pruinosa'' *''Sarcocornia pulvinata'' (R.E.Fr.) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia pulvinata'' *''Sarcocornia quinqueflora'' (Bunge ex Ung.-Sternb.) A.J. Scott = '' Salicornia quinqueflora'' *''Sarcocornia tegetaria'' S.Steffen, Mucina & G.Kadereit = '' Salicornia tegetaria'' *''Sarcocornia terminalis'' (Tölken) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia terminalis'' *''Sarcocornia utahensis'' (Tidestr.) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia utahensis'' *''Sarcocornia xerophila'' (Tölken) A.J.Scott = '' Salicornia xerophila'' Sarcocornia fruticosa781.jpg, ''

'' (syn. ''Sarcocornia fruticosa'') Arthrocnemum perenne.jpg, '' Salicornia perennis'' (syn. ''Sarcocornia perennis'') Sarcocornia neei.jpg, ''

'' (syn. ''Sarcocornia neei'') CSIRO ScienceImage 11694 Beaded glasswort Leschenault Inlet WA.jpg, '' Salicornia quinqueflora'' (syn. ''Sarcocornia quinqueflora'')

References

Ball, Peter W. (2004).
''Sarcocornia''.
in ''Flora of North America: North of Mexic
Volume 4: Magnoliophyta: Caryophyllidae, part 1
', Editorial Committee of the ''Flora of North America'' (Oxford University Press, 2004). .. ''Sarcocornia''.
PlantNET. National Herbarium of New South Wales, Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney.

External links

* *
''Sarcocornia''.
Red List of South African Plants. South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). {{Taxonbar, from=Q2712967 Historically recognized angiosperm genera Amaranthaceae Halophytes