Atriplex coulteri |
Atriplex suberecta |
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Coulter's orach, Coulter's orache, Coulter's saltbush |
peregrine saltbush, sprawling saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, perennial, sometimes flowering as an annual, spreading 0.7–10 dm, slightly woody at base. | Herbs, annual or perennial, sprawling to ascending, 2–6 dm, branching from densely scaly base. |
Stems | frequently tinged with red, much branched, sparsely scurfy. |
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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. |
mostly alternate, shortly petiolate; blade narrow to broadly rhomboid, lanceolate, oblanceolate, or elliptic, (8–)12–35(–42) × 6–16 mm, thin, margin coarsely and irregularly dentate, glabrescent adaxially, somewhat scurfy abaxially. |
Staminate flowers | in glomerules in distal axils and short terminal spikes. |
in subterminal, axillary glomerules. |
Pistillate flowers | in small axillary clusters. |
in axillary glomerules. |
Seeds | brown, 1.3–1.5 mm. |
circular. |
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 on the stipe to 0.5 mm, rhombic to obovate, almost flat to convex, 2.2–4 × 1.7–2.7 mm, thin or somewhat thickened in age, connate in basal 1/2, margin entire in basal 1/2, 2–4-toothed in distal 1/2, apex acute, scurfy. |
2n | = 18. |
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Atriplex coulteri |
Atriplex suberecta |
|
Phenology | Flowering spring–fall. | Flowering summer–fall. |
Habitat | Somewhat alkaline or clay low places, valley grasslands, coastal sage scrub, coastal slopes | Disturbed places, with other ruderal weeds |
Elevation | 0-500 m (0-1600 ft) | 10-900 m (0-3000 ft) |
Distribution |
CA
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CA; UT; Australia; naturalized South Africa [Introduced in North America]
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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.) |
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Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 363. | FNA vol. 4, p. 343. |
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Atriplex > sect. Semibaccata |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Obione coulteri | |
Name authority | (Moquin-Tandon) D. Dietrich: Syn. Pl. 5: 537. (1852) | I. Verdoorn: Bothalia 6: 418, figs. 2, 3(2). (1954) |
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