PLantsannual or perennial herbs or shrubs, usually mostly glabrous except for a few, quickly lost, hairs on very new growth. Leaves alternate, petiolate or not; petioles, if present, very short, not differentiated into an indurate base and deciduous top; blades fleshy, usually cylindrical or half cylindrical. Inflorescences usually terminal, usually spicate, of axillary sessile or subsessile flower clusters. Flowers bisexual or unisexual, each subtended by 2-3 scarious oavte bracteoles shorter than the perianths; perianths fleshy, 5-partite; stamens 5, reduced to filaments in female flowers; ovaries sessile, sometimes adnate to the perianths; stigmas sessile (2-)3(-5). Utricles membranous or spongy, usually dispersed with the persistent periaths; seeds compressed, vertical or horizontal; testas usually dark, glossy; embryos flat, spiral.
Suaeda includes about 90 species. They grow mostly in saline habitats or drier areas. It is almost cosmopolitan in its distribution. There are 4 species in the Flora of Somalia.
Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.
