Atriplex coulteri |
Atriplex hymenelytra |
|
---|---|---|
Coulter's orach, Coulter's orache, Coulter's saltbush |
desert-holly |
|
Habit | Herbs, perennial, sometimes flowering as an annual, spreading 0.7–10 dm, slightly woody at base. | Shrubs, dioecious, 3–15+ dm, as wide, unarmed. |
Stems | frequently tinged with red, much branched, sparsely scurfy. |
|
Leaves | many, sessile or short petiolate; blade obovate, oblong, oblanceolate, or elliptic, (5–)7–20 × 1–3(–5) mm, base cuneate, margin entire, apex acute. |
persistent, alternate, petiolate; blade greenish to silvery white, orbiculate to reniform or oval, 10–40 mm, as wide or wider, prominently dentate, teeth to 10 mm, permanently scurfy. |
Staminate flowers | in glomerules in distal axils and short terminal spikes. |
yellow to purple-brown, in clusters 3–4 mm thick, borne in panicles to 3 cm. |
Pistillate flowers | in small axillary clusters. |
borne in inflorescences similar to staminate ones. |
Seeds | brown, 1.3–1.5 mm. |
brown, 2 mm wide; radicle sublateral. |
Fruiting | bracteoles sessile or subsessile, broadly obovate, 2–3 mm and as broad or about as broad, united 1/2 of length, margin free, deeply and sharply dentate, narrowed at summit, faces smooth or sometimes tuberculate. |
bracteoles sessile, rather prominently veined, orbiculate to reniform, strongly compressed, 7–10 × 7–10 mm, thin, united at base, margin entire to crenate, glabrous, lacking processes. |
2n | = 18. |
|
Atriplex coulteri |
Atriplex hymenelytra |
|
Phenology | Flowering spring–fall. | Flowering spring. |
Habitat | Somewhat alkaline or clay low places, valley grasslands, coastal sage scrub, coastal slopes | Warm desert shrub, on dry saline alluvial fans and hills |
Elevation | 0-500 m (0-1600 ft) | 80-1200 m (300-3900 ft) |
Distribution |
CA
|
AZ; CA; NV; UT
|
Discussion | Of conservation concern. Atriplex coulteri is closely allied to the geographically disjunct A. fruticulosa, from which it is said to differ in the compressed, small (2.5–3 mm) versus thickened and larger (3–5 mm) bracts. Specimens of A. fruticulosa, including the type, examined by me have bracteoles compressed-thickened, but hardly “globoid” as stated in the key to the species by H. M. Hall and F. E. Clements (1923). Additional specimens borrowed from California might clarify the situation; otherwise the two species are sufficiently close as to be treated as a single entity. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Atriplex hymenelytra occurs with saltbush, Larrea-Ambrosia, ephedra, and yucca. This is a handsome, rounded shrub with silvery white foliage, sometimes contrasting strongly with the peculiar substrates on which it grows. Its relationships to other of the southwestern species are recondite, but possibly it is allied to A. confertifolia, with which C. A. Hanson (1962) suggested an affinity. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 363. | FNA vol. 4, p. 376. |
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Pterochiton |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Obione coulteri | Obione hymenelytra |
Name authority | (Moquin-Tandon) D. Dietrich: Syn. Pl. 5: 537. (1852) | (Torrey) S. Watson: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 9: 129. (1874) |
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