Atriplex coulteri
Atriplex watsonii
Coulter's orach, Coulter's orache, Coulter's saltbush
Watson's orach, Watson's saltbush
frequently tinged with red, much branched, sparsely scurfy.
forming tangled mats 1–3 m across, woody at base, white scurfy.
many, sessile or short petiolate;
blade obovate, oblong, oblanceolate, or elliptic, (5–)7–20 × 1–3(–5) mm, base cuneate, margin entire, apex acute.
numerous, mostly opposite;
blade broadly elliptic to ovate, 8–25 mm, often surpassing internodes, thick and fleshy (when fresh), margin entire, apex acutish, white scurfy.
in glomerules in distal axils and short terminal spikes.
in large glomerules in naked, interrupted terminal spikes;
calyx 5-cleft.
in small axillary clusters.
in small, axillary clusters.
brown, 1.3–1.5 mm.
light brown, 1–1.5 mm.
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 short stipitate, ovate to rhombic, united to beyond middle, 4–8 mm, margin entire to erose, faces plane.
Atriplex coulteri
Atriplex watsonii
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 watsonii is a sprawling plant that exhibits much variation in leaf size, as attested in the clearly staminate type collection, Palmer 334, wherein the range in size is from 5–25 × 2.5–11 mm wide. Although typically placed adjacent to A. matamorensis, the other dioecious perennial, the two taxa are probably not closely allied. The broader-leaved phases simulate closely A. leucophylla, with which it is sometimes confused, and perhaps the relationship lies in that direction, but it closely simulates A. californica, with which it is probably most closely allied.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
CA
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
