Atriplex argentea |
Atriplex hortensis |
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maidenhair spleenwort, silver orach, silver orache, silver saltbush, silverscale, silverscale orache, silverscale saltbush, silvery orache |
French spinach, garden orach, garden orache, orache |
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Habit | Herbs, simple or freely branched, 0.5–6 dm; branches rather stout, angled, scurfy when young. | Herbs, green to yellowish or reddish, 5–15(–25) dm, glabrous. | ||||||||||||||||
Stems | erect, mostly branched. |
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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). |
mostly opposite or mostly alternate; petiole 0.3–4+ cm; blade green on both sides, ovate or ovate-lanceolate to cordate-hastate at base, 15–180 × 8–135 mm, margin entire or more rarely irregularly toothed or lobed, apex attenuate to acuminate or rounded. |
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Inflorescences | of spikes disposed in leafless panicles. |
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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. |
5-merous. |
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Pistillate flowers | dimorphic, some ebracteolate and with 5-parted perianth, others without perianth enclosed by a pair of sessile or very shortly stipitate bracteoles. |
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Seeds | brown, 1.5–2 mm wide; radicle superior or lateral. |
of ebracteate flowers black, horizontal, convex, 1–2 mm wide, lustrous; those of bracteolate flowers olivaceous brown, vertical, flat, 3–4.5 mm wide, dull. |
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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 samaralike, orbicular to oval or ovate, compressed, 5–18 mm, united only at base, entire, faces smooth. |
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2n | = 18, 36, 54. |
= 18. |
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Atriplex argentea |
Atriplex hortensis |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | |||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Roadsides, canal and stream banks, lake shores, disturbed sites and gardens | |||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 0-2200 m (0-7200 ft) | |||||||||||||||||
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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AK; CA; CO; CT; IA; ID; IL; IN; MA; MN; MT; ND; NE; NJ; NV; NY; OR; SD; UT; WA; WI; WY; AB; BC; MB; ON; QC; SK; YT; Asia [Introduced in North America]
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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.) |
Atriplex hortensis has been widely grown as a potherb, has escaped from cultivation, and is now established especially in moist ruderal sites. It is easily distinguished by its rounded, samaralike, entire, and smooth fruiting bracteoles, and the presence of two kinds of pistillate flowers, the one enclosed by bracteoles and lacking sepals, the other without bracteoles but subtended by sepals. Atriplex nitens (see list of excluded taxa) is distinguished from A. hortensis in Flora Europea (P. Aellen 1964b) by having leaf blades densely white scurfy beneath, the distal surface lustrous, as opposed to green and dull for A. hortensis. Occasional specimens, treated here as A. hortensis, have leaves somewhat scurfy. (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. 332. | ||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Argenteae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Atriplex > sect. Atriplex | ||||||||||||||||
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Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Obione argentea | A. nitens | ||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Nuttall: Gen. N. Amer. Pl. 1: 198. (1818) | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1053. (1753) | ||||||||||||||||
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