Atriplex acanthocarpa |
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armed saltbush, burscale, tubercled saltbush |
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Habit | Shrubs or subshrubs, dioecious, evergreen, mainly 2–10 × 4–10+ dm, woody especially basally, unarmed; branchlets obtusely angled to subterete. | ||||
Leaves | persistent, proximal ones opposite, becoming alternate distally, short petiolate or subsessile; blade oblong to oblong-lanceolate, ovate, obovate, or spatulate, 12–40(–50) × 5–25 mm, base commonly subhastate to cuneate, margin entire or sinuate-dentate to strongly undulate-crisped, apex acute. |
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Staminate flowers | in interrupted or crowded glomerules 2–4.5 mm thick, in sparsely leafy paniculate spikes to 5+ dm. |
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Pistillate flowers | few to solitary, in axillary clusters or in crowded or interrupted, often leafy, erect, branched spicate racemes or racemose panicles to 25+ cm. |
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Seeds | brown, 1.5–2 mm. |
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Fruiting | bracteoles on slender or stout stipes (2–)4–20 mm (or sessile), body broadly elliptic to globose, 6–15 mm and wide, spongy, united to the linear apex, margin deeply laciniate, faces appendaged with flattened to hornlike tubercles to 8 mm. |
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Atriplex acanthocarpa |
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Distribution |
AZ; NM; TX; n Mexico
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Discussion | Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 370. | ||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Pterochiton | ||||
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Subordinate taxa | |||||
Synonyms | Obione acanthocarpa | ||||
Name authority | (Torrey) S. Watson: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 9: 117. (1874) | ||||
Web links |