Atriplex coulteri |
Atriplex lindleyi |
|
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Coulter's orach, Coulter's orache, Coulter's saltbush |
Lindley's saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, perennial, sometimes flowering as an annual, spreading 0.7–10 dm, slightly woody at base. | Herbs, erect or suffrutescent perennial, 1.5–4 dm, woody at base. |
Stems | frequently tinged with red, much branched, sparsely scurfy. |
terete, finely white-mealy when young. |
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. |
alternate, petiolate proximally, becoming sessile distally, crowded; blade oblanceolate or proximal rhombic, 10–20(–30) × 3–15 mm, base cuneate or attenuate, margin entire to repand-denticulate, apex acute to obtuse, scurfy. |
Staminate flowers | in glomerules in distal axils and short terminal spikes. |
in axillary glomerules, in short axillary spikes or terminal spikes. |
Pistillate flowers | in small axillary clusters. |
axillary, solitary or few and clustered below staminate. |
Seeds | brown, 1.3–1.5 mm. |
dimorphic: dark reddish brown, 1.5 mm wide, or black, slightly smaller; radicle basal, horizontal. |
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, bordered by narrow horizontal wing or acutely angled, broadly turbinate or hemispheric, united except at minute apical tips, 6–12 mm, spongy and inflated at maturity, flattened at summit. |
Atriplex coulteri |
Atriplex lindleyi |
|
Phenology | Flowering spring–fall. | |
Habitat | Somewhat alkaline or clay low places, valley grasslands, coastal sage scrub, coastal slopes | Sparingly escaped from cultivation |
Elevation | 0-500 m (0-1600 ft) | |
Distribution |
CA
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CA; Australia [Introduced in North America] |
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.) |
|
Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 363. | FNA vol. 4, p. 342. |
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Atriplex > sect. Spongiocarpus |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Obione coulteri | A. halimoides |
Name authority | (Moquin-Tandon) D. Dietrich: Syn. Pl. 5: 537. (1852) | Moquin-Tandon: in A. P. de Candolle and A. L. P. P. de Candolle, Prodr. 13(2): 100. (1849) |
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