Cytotaxonomic status and morphological characterisation of Salicornia dolichostachya and Salicornia brachystachya

Morphological studies on a number of field populations of Salicornia europaea agg. were made. Contrary to other studies two species were distinguished: Salicornia dolichostachya with 2n = 36 and Salicornia brachystachya with 2n = 18 (respectively S. procumbens agg. and S. europaea agg. in Flora Europaea (Tutin et al. 1964). A cyto-taxonomical study under laboratory conditions showed that the morphological characteristics used to distinguish the two species in the field were functional. A demographic pilot study showed a different distribution of the two species over the salt marsh.