Atriplex argentea |
Atriplex leucophylla |
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maidenhair spleenwort, silver orach, silver orache, silver saltbush, silverscale, silverscale orache, silverscale saltbush, silvery orache |
beach saltbush, sea scale, whiteleaf orach |
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Habit | Herbs, simple or freely branched, 0.5–6 dm; branches rather stout, angled, scurfy when young. | Herbs, prostrate (decumbent or procumbent), many branched, 1.5–6 dm, somewhat woody below, coarse, white scurfy. | ||||||||||||||||
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). |
many, sometimes crowded; blade orbiculate to ovate or ovate-lanceolate to elliptic or oblong, 8–40 × 4–18 mm, base obtuse or rounded, white scurfy. |
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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 dense terminal spikes. |
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Pistillate flowers | in few-flowered, axillary clusters. |
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Seeds | brown, 1.5–2 mm wide; radicle superior or lateral. |
dark red-brown, 2.5–3 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 not compressed, 5–7 mm, faces usually with wartlike projections, scurfy. |
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2n | = 18, 36, 54. |
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Atriplex argentea |
Atriplex leucophylla |
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Phenology | Flowering spring–fall. | |||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Sea beaches, along coasts, at higher elevation inland | |||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 0-30 m (0-100 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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CA; Mexico (Baja California)
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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 leucophylla occurs with Potentilla, Camissonia, Ambrosia, Cakile, and Calystegia. (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. 366. | ||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Argenteae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Leucophyllae | ||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Obione argentea | Obione leucophylla | ||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Nuttall: Gen. N. Amer. Pl. 1: 198. (1818) | (Moquin-Tandon) D. Dietrich: Syn. Pl. 5: 536. (1852) | ||||||||||||||||
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