Atriplex argentea |
Atriplex amnicola |
|||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
maidenhair spleenwort, silver orach, silver orache, silver saltbush, silverscale, silverscale orache, silverscale saltbush, silvery orache |
swamp saltbush |
|||||||||||||||||
Habit | Herbs, simple or freely branched, 0.5–6 dm; branches rather stout, angled, scurfy when young. | Shrubs, predominantly dioecious, mainly 10–15 dm. | ||||||||||||||||
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). |
short petiolate; blade elliptic to narrowly oblong or narrowly hastate with short divaricate basal lobes, 10–25 mm, margin entire or remotely dentate, apex obtuse to acute. |
||||||||||||||||
Flowers | in axillary glomerules and terminal, interrupted spikes. |
|||||||||||||||||
Staminate flowers | borne in distal axils, or in short dense spikes or panicles, or intermixed with pistillate, with 4–5-parted calyx. |
in compact glomerules 5 mm thick, forming terminal spikes. |
||||||||||||||||
Pistillate flowers | in axillary clusters and forming short, dense terminal spikes. |
|||||||||||||||||
Seeds | brown, 1.5–2 mm wide; radicle superior or lateral. |
circular. |
||||||||||||||||
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 somewhat rhombic to semicircular, biconvex, 4–6 mm wide, with a short hard turbinate base, thick and hard throughout or with a herbaceous margin, lacking appendages. |
||||||||||||||||
2n | = 18, 36, 54. |
|||||||||||||||||
Atriplex argentea |
Atriplex amnicola |
|||||||||||||||||
Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | |||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Sea beaches | |||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 10 m (0 ft) | |||||||||||||||||
Distribution |
AZ; CA; CO; ID; KS; MT; ND; NE; NM; NV; OK; OR; SD; TX; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC; MB; SK; Mexico
|
CA; Australia [Introduced in North America] |
||||||||||||||||
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.) |
This is a singular, large, mostly dioecious shrub well established on the beach at Malibu, California. It produces abundant, hard, rhombic fruiting bracteoles. In its native western Australia, it occurs in coastal regions and inland along creeks and the outer margins of salt lakes. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
||||||||||||||||
Key |
|
|||||||||||||||||
Source | FNA vol. 4. | FNA vol. 4, p. 344. | ||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Argenteae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Atriplex > sect. Dialysex | ||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Obione argentea | |||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Nuttall: Gen. N. Amer. Pl. 1: 198. (1818) | Paul G. Wilson: Fl. Australia 4: 129, 322. (1984) | ||||||||||||||||
Web links |
|