Atriplex coulteri
Atriplex rosea
Coulter's orach, Coulter's orache, Coulter's saltbush
red orach, red orache, redscale, tumbling orach, tumbling orache, tumbling saltweed
frequently tinged with red, much branched, sparsely scurfy.
simple or more commonly divaricately branching throughout, branches terete;
herbage whitish scurfy to glabrate.
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, short petiolate, blade prominently 3-veined, ovate to lanceolate, mainly 12–80 × 6–50 mm, margin irregularly sinuate-dentate and often subhastately lobed or rarely some entire, apex acute to obtuse.
in axillary glomerules or interrupted terminal spikes.
in glomerules in distal axils and short terminal spikes.
with 4 or 5 sepals.
in small axillary clusters.
in axillary glomerules of 5–10.
brown, 1.3–1.5 mm.
dimorphic: brown, 2–2.5 mm wide, or black, 1–2 mm wide;
radicle inferior.
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 prominently 3–5-veined, sessile or short stipitate, (3–)4–6(–10) mm and as wide, sometimes subhastately lobed at base, conspicuously dentate, sharply tuberculate to almost smooth on faces.
= 18.
Atriplex coulteri
Atriplex rosea
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.)
At least some early collections were from ballast dumps at harbors on both coasts. It seems probable that the plants were quickly spread inland from initial centers of introduction by birds and more recently along railroads.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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