Atriplex coulteri |
Atriplex spinifera |
|
---|---|---|
Coulter's orach, Coulter's orache, Coulter's saltbush |
spinescale saltbush, spiny saltbush |
|
Habit | Herbs, perennial, sometimes flowering as an annual, spreading 0.7–10 dm, slightly woody at base. | Shrubs, dioecious, erect, intricately much branched, mainly 3–15 dm; branchlets terete, becoming rigid and spinose. |
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. |
short petiolate to sessile; blade ovate-deltate to elliptic or spatulate, (5–)10–27 mm, entire or subhastate. |
Staminate flowers | in glomerules in distal axils and short terminal spikes. |
borne in small axillary glomerules. |
Pistillate flowers | in small axillary clusters. |
borne solitary or few in bract axils on short, spinose, lateral branchlets of a paniculate inflorescence. |
Seeds | brown, 1.3–1.5 mm. |
reddish brown, 2–2.8 mm. |
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 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. |
Atriplex coulteri |
Atriplex spinifera |
|
Phenology | Flowering spring–fall. | Flowering summer–fall. |
Habitat | Somewhat alkaline or clay low places, valley grasslands, coastal sage scrub, coastal slopes | Xeric saline substrates, with mixed salt desert shrubs |
Elevation | 0-500 m (0-1600 ft) | 30-1300 m (100-4300 ft) |
Distribution |
CA
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CA
|
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.) |
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.) |
Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 363. | FNA vol. 4, p. 377. |
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Pterochiton |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Obione coulteri | |
Name authority | (Moquin-Tandon) D. Dietrich: Syn. Pl. 5: 537. (1852) | J. F. Macbride: Contr. Gray Herb. 53: 11. (1918) |
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