Atriplex argentea |
Atriplex spinifera |
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maidenhair spleenwort, silver orach, silver orache, silver saltbush, silverscale, silverscale orache, silverscale saltbush, silvery orache |
spinescale saltbush, spiny saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, simple or freely branched, 0.5–6 dm; branches rather stout, angled, scurfy when young. | Shrubs, dioecious, erect, intricately much branched, mainly 3–15 dm; branchlets terete, becoming rigid and spinose. | ||||||||||||||||
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 to sessile; blade ovate-deltate to elliptic or spatulate, (5–)10–27 mm, entire or subhastate. |
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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. |
borne in small axillary glomerules. |
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Pistillate flowers | borne solitary or few in bract axils on short, spinose, lateral branchlets of a paniculate inflorescence. |
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Seeds | brown, 1.5–2 mm wide; radicle superior or lateral. |
reddish brown, 2–2.8 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 sessile or nearly so, body globose, connate, constricted below oblong to orbicular wings, 7–15 ×3.5–10 mm, entire or obscurely dentate, faces smooth to sparingly cristate. |
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2n | = 18, 36, 54. |
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Atriplex argentea |
Atriplex spinifera |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | |||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Xeric saline substrates, with mixed salt desert shrubs | |||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 30-1300 m (100-4300 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
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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.) |
Spiny saltbush apparently forms occasional hybrids with phases of Atriplex canescens, as indicated by the presence of wings on some of the fruiting bracteoles. (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. 377. | ||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Argenteae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Pterochiton | ||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Obione argentea | |||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Nuttall: Gen. N. Amer. Pl. 1: 198. (1818) | J. F. Macbride: Contr. Gray Herb. 53: 11. (1918) | ||||||||||||||||
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