Citation: Forsskål ex Scop., Intr. Hist. Nat. 333 (1777).

Derivation: From the Arabic name for Suaeda aegyptiaca.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Seablites.

Description:
Herbs or small shrubs, glabrous to sparsely puberulent; leaves alternate, narrow and succulent, entire.

Flowers in axillary clusters of 1-3 or more, subtended by 2 or 3 small scarious scale-like bracteoles; perianth succulent, slightly to deeply 5-lobed, unchanged or becoming enlarged and sometimes crustaceous in fruit; stamens 5, hypogynous or attached to the perianth tube; ovary free from or rarely united to the perianth, hemispherical to conical.

Pericarp membranous or slightly succulent; seed horizontal or erect, lenticular; embryo in a plane spiral; perisperm slight or absent; testa crustaceous or membranous.

Distribution:  A genus of over 100 species most of which are found in the Northern Hemisphere. 5 species occur in Australia of which 2 are endemic.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:

1. Ovary adnate to the lower half of the perianth; seed erect	S. aegyptiaca 1.
1. Ovary free from the perianth; seed horizontal or both horizontal and erect
2. Leaves without a pellucid margin, acute or obtuse; perianth rounded on the back but not inflated; seeds all horizontal	S. australis 2.
2. Leaves with a pellucid margin, acute; perianth becoming inflated; seed both horizontal and erect	S. baccifera 3.

Author: Not yet available