Sesuvium portulacastrum (L.) L.

• Title

  Sesuvium portulacastrum (L.) L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Sesuvium portulacastrum (L.) L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Sesuvium Portulacastrum Yerba de vidrio Sea Purslane Family Aizoaceae Carpet-weed Family Portulaca Portulacastrum Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 446. 1753. Sesuvium Portulacastrum Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, edition 10. 1058. 1759. As one of the most plentiful and characteristic herbaceous plants of saline soils, the Sea Purslane grows in such habitats along the coasts of tropical, subtropical and warm-temperate parts of both the New World and the Old, in America ranging north to North Carolina and to Bermuda, its seeds long retaining vitality in salt water. It is abundant in Porto Rico, observed also on the small islands Mona, Cayo Icacos and Vieques; the purple flowers are attractive. Verdolaga rosada is another Spanish name. Sesuvium (the name is unexplained) consists of about 6 species of fleshy, decumbent, or prostrate herbs, with opposite leaves, and axillary, pink or purple flowers. The top-shaped calyx has 5, oblong, blunt lobes, and there are no petals; the stamens, borne on the calyx-tube, are numerous, or few, with slender filaments; the 3-celled to 5-celled ovary contains many ovules; the 3, 4, or 5 styles are papillose on the inner side. The fruit is an oblong, many-seeded capsule, which opens horizontally (circumscissle), releasing the round, smooth seeds. Sesuvium Portulacastrum (Portulaca-star) is perennial, smooth, nearly or quite prostrate, branched, and often forms large patches. Its leaves are oblanceolate, or oblong, short-pointed, from 1.5 to 4.5 centimeters long, with clasping bases. The flowers are stalked, sometimes long-stalked, and solitary in the leaf-axils; the lance-shaped lobes of the calyx are from 7 to 10 millimeters long, hooded, purple on the upper side, resembling petals, the back prolonged into an appendage; there are numerous stamens. The conic capsule is from 8 to 10 millimeters long. Sesuvium maritimum, with stalkless, or nearly stalkless flowers, the stamens only 5, has been observed at a few localities in Porto Rico.