Atriplex argentea |
Atriplex acanthocarpa |
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maidenhair spleenwort, silver orach, silver orache, silver saltbush, silverscale, silverscale orache, silverscale saltbush, silvery orache |
armed saltbush, burscale, tubercled saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, simple or freely branched, 0.5–6 dm; branches rather stout, angled, scurfy when young. | Shrubs or subshrubs, dioecious, evergreen, mainly 2–10 × 4–10+ dm, woody especially basally, unarmed; branchlets obtusely angled to subterete. | ||||||||||||||||||||
Leaves | often opposite proximally, petiolate or distal bracteate ones subsessile, blade lance-ovate, lanceolate, deltoid, or cordate, 5–75 × 4–50(–75) mm, base subhastate or obtuse to acute, margin entire or essentially so, sometimes closely repand-dentate, apex obtuse to acute or rounded, scurfy (glabrous). |
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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Flowers | in axillary glomerules and terminal, interrupted spikes. |
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Staminate flowers | borne in distal axils, or in short dense spikes or panicles, or intermixed with pistillate, with 4–5-parted calyx. |
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 wide; radicle superior or lateral. |
brown, 1.5–2 mm. |
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Fruiting | bracteoles sessile, subsessile, or stipitate (stipe 0.5–5 mm), cuneate-orbicular, (2.5–)4–11.2 × 2–8.8(–14) mm, margin foliaceous below apex, subentire or dentate to laciniate, face smooth, tuberculate, or crested, processes sometimes again toothed, teeth then aligned with axis of process. |
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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2n | = 18, 36, 54. |
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Atriplex argentea |
Atriplex acanthocarpa |
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Distribution |
AZ; CA; CO; ID; KS; MT; ND; NE; NM; NV; OK; OR; SD; TX; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC; MB; SK; Mexico
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AZ; NM; TX; n Mexico
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Discussion | Varieties 5 (5 in the flora). Herbarium materials have tended to represent a catchall for annual specimens not readily assignable to other taxa. Indeed, the distinguishing features of the Atriplex argentea complex are shared singly and often in combination with other taxa. Only by use of combinations of features can this taxon be defined. Those features, with much variation, center around the broad, typically ovate to deltoid leaf blades (often definitely 3-veined) and more-or-less compressed, sessile to subsessile (or short stipitate), fruiting bracteoles on which the marginal processes, or teeth, are mainly aligned with the plane compression, and with the faces quite smooth to variously appendaged. Still some specimens are apparently intermediate with other species, especially with the closely allied A. saccaria, with which it is at least partially sympatric. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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. | FNA vol. 4, p. 370. | ||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Argenteae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Pterochiton | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Obione argentea | Obione acanthocarpa | ||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Nuttall: Gen. N. Amer. Pl. 1: 198. (1818) | (Torrey) S. Watson: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 9: 117. (1874) | ||||||||||||||||||||
Web links |
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