Silverhead

Plants perennial or occasionally annual, 3-20 dm. Stems mostly prostrate with ascending branches, much-branched, gla-brous. Leaf blades linear to linear lanceolate or oblanceolate, 15-55 × 2-12 mm. Inflorescences: heads white or pinkish (drying silvery white), globose or cylindric, 7-30 × 7-10 mm; bracteoles slightly shorter than flowers. Flowers very short-pedicellate; tepals connate basally, white, oblong, dorsiventrally compressed, thickened basally, 3-5 mm, chartaceous, apex of outer tepals obtuse, apex of inner tepals acute, spinose-tipped, densely villose. Utricles indehiscent or splitting irregularly, included in tepals, 1.3 mm. Seeds 0.8-1 mm.

Fla., La., Tex.; Mexico; Central America.

Flowering year-round.

Saline soils, sands of beaches, dunes, sand bars; 0-10m.

Gomphrena vermicularis Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 224. 1753; Philoxerus vermicularis (Linnaeus) R Brown ex Smith

Philoxerus vermicularis (L.) R. Br. Prodr. 416. 1810
Gomphrena vermicularis Xt, Sp. PI. 224. 1753.
Illecebrum vermiculatum I/. Sp. PI. ed. 2. 300. 1762.
Gomphrena aggregata Willd. Enum. 294. 1809.
Philoxerus vermiculatus Smith, in Rees, Cycl. 27: Philoxerus no. 5, 1814.
Philoxerus aggregaius H. B. K. Nov. Gen. & Sp. 2: 203. 1818.
Philoxerus crassifolius H. B. K. Nov. Gen. & Sp. 2: 203. 1818.
Achyranthes vermicularis Ell. Bot. S. C. & Ga. 1: 310. 1821.
Gomphrena crassifolia Spreng. Syst. 1: 824. 1825.
Caraxeron vermicularis Raf. Fl. Tell. 3: 38. 1837.
Blutaparon breviflorum Raf. New FL 4: 45. 1838.
Blutaparon repens Raf. New Fl. 4: 46. 1838.
Iresine vermicularis Moq. in DC. Prodr. 13 2 : 340. 1849.
Iresine crassifolia, Moq. in DC. Prodr. 132: 340. 1849.
Iresine aggregata Moq. in DC. Prodr. 13 2 : 340. 1849.
Celosia maritima Salzm.; Moq. in DC. Prodr. 13 2 : 341, as synonym. 1849. PART 2, 1917] AMARANTHACEAE 169
Cruzeta crassifolia Maza, Fl. Haban. 94. 1897.
Lithophila vermiculata Uline, Field Columb. Mus. Publ. Bot. 2: 39. 1900.
Plants much branched, glabrous outside the inflorescence except in the axils of the leaves, there villous; branches stout, fleshy, prostrate or procumbent, 3-20 dm. long, subgeniculate, often rooting at the nodes; leaves sessile, linear to oblanceolate or rarely oblong, 1.5-5.5 cm. long, 2-12 mm. wide, obtuse or acute at the apex, attenuate to the base, thick and fleshy* the veins scarcely distinguishable, glabrous; spikes solitary or glomerate, sessile or short-pedunculate, globose or usually cylindric in age, 0.7-3 cm. long, 0.7-1.1 cm. thick, obtuse, the rachis lanate, the flowers white; bracts broadly ovate, 1-nerved, acute or obtuse; bractlets ovateoblong, slightly shorter than the sepals, acute, glabrous; sepals oblong, 3-5 mm. long, the outer ones obtuse, glabrous, the inner narrower, acute, usually lanate near the base; seed orbicular, 0.8-1 mm. broad, dark-brown, shining.
Type locality: Curacao.
Distribution: On seashores, Florida to Texas; Mexico to Panama; West Indies; also from Colombia to Brazil, and on the west coast of Africa.

Blutaparon vermiculare, with common names silverhead, silverweed, saltweed, and samphire, is a species of plant in the family Amaranthaceae, native to Central America and the southeastern United States. It is an edible