Tecticornia lylei

Erect shrub to c. 1 m high. Ultimate branchlets very slender (to c. 2 mm diam.), articles cylindric, dull, mostly c. 3 mm long; lobes obtuse to broadly acute, often with a short tuberculate keel near apex, margins entire to denticulate. Spikes terminal, to c. 3 cm long, c. twice as wide as branchlets; opposite bracts united, margins entire; flowers free, protruding beyond bracts; perianth truncate at apex. Fruiting perianth brown, strongly protruding from bracts, hard but spongy internally, pericarp of similar texture, shortly protruding from perianth at apex; seed obliquely ovoid, 1–1.5 mm long, falling enclosed in perianth, testa thinly crustaceous, reddish-brown, granular in several rows on dorsal angle, elsewhere minutely elongate-reticulate. Flowers mostly Aug.–Oct.