This section is from the book "An Illustrated Flora Of The Northern United States, Canada And The British Possessions Vol2", by Nathaniel Lord Britton, Addison Brown. Also available from Amazon: An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. 3 Volume Set..
Perennial fleshy maritime herbs, with ovate obovate oblong or oblanceolate leaves, and rather small flowers, solitary in the axils and in the forks of the stem or branches. Sepals 5 (rarely 4). Petals the same number, entire. Stamens 8 or 10. Disk prominent, 8-10-lobed, glandular. Styles 3-5. Capsule subglobose, fleshy, 3-5-valved when mature, the valve entire. Seeds numerous, obovate, not strophiolate. [In honor of Gerhart August Honckeny, German botanist, 1724-1805.]
Two species, the following of sea beaches throughout the north temperate zone, the other of the coasts of northwestern America and northeastern Asia. Type species: Honkenya pcploides (L.) Ehrh.
Fig. 1793
Arenaria peploides L. Sp. Pl. 423. 1753. Honkenya peploides Ehrh. Beitr. 2: 181. 1788. Ammodenia peploides Rupr. Beitr. Pfl. Russ. Reich. 2: 25. 1845.
Perennial from long rootstocks, glabrous, fleshy throughout, stems stout, tufted, simple or branched, erect, diffuse or ascending, 3'-10' long. Leaves sessile, clasping, ovate or oval, acute or mucronate, 5"-10" long; flowers axillary and terminal, 3"-4" broad; peduncles stout, 2"-8" long; ovary 3-celled (rarely 4-5-celled); sepals ovate, obtusish, about equalling the petals, shorter than the depressed-globose mostly 3-valved pod; seeds smooth, short-beaked at the hilum, not strophiolate.
On sands of the seashore, Virginia to New Jersey and arctic America. Also in the shores of northern Europe and Asia. Called also sea-chickweed and sea-purslane or -pimpernel. June-July.
 
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