Flora of North America species comparison

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Atriplex elegans

wheelscale, wheelscale orach, wheelscale saltbush, white-scale saltbush
Habit Herbs, annual (or sometimes perennial?).
Stems

ascending or procumbent to erect, stramineous or whitish, simple or much branched at base, obtusely angled in age, mainly 0.5–4.5 dm, slender or stout, scurfy to glabrate.
Leaves

many, subsessile or shortly petiolate;

blade elliptic to spatulate, oblanceolate, oblong, or obovate, 5–30(–35) × 2–8(–12) mm, base cuneate to attenuate, margin entire or irregularly dentate, densely scurfy abaxially, usually green and glabrate adaxially.
Staminate flowers

with 3–5-parted perianth.
Pistillate flowers

intermixed with staminate in small axillary clusters.
Seeds

brown, 1–1.5 mm wide.
Fruiting

bracteoles subsessile or short stipitate, orbiculate, strongly compressed, 2–4 mm and as wide, united except at thin margin, margin dentate, terminal teeth often prominent, faces smooth or with cristate appendages (thornberi phase).

Atriplex elegans
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; CA; NM; NV; TX; UT; n Mexico
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Fruiting bracteole margin dentate to incised, teeth 0.5-1 mm; bracteole not especially samaralike; s California e to Texas, and Mexico (Chihuahua, Sonora)
var. elegans
1. Fruiting bracteole margin finely toothed, teeth 0.3-0.5 mm; bracteole appearing samaralike; s Cali- fornia and w Arizona
var. fasciculata
Source FNA vol. 4, p. 364.
Parent taxa Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae
Sibling taxa
A. acanthocarpa, A. amnicola, A. argentea, A. californica, A. canescens, A. confertifolia, A. cordulata, A. coronata, A. corrugata, A. coulteri, A. covillei, A. dioica, A. fruticulosa, A. gardneri, A. garrettii, A. glabriuscula, A. gmelinii, A. graciliflora, A. heterosperma, A. holocarpa, A. hortensis, A. hymenelytra, A. joaquiniana, A. klebergorum, A. laciniata, A. lentiformis, A. leucophylla, A. lindleyi, A. linearis, A. littoralis, A. matamorensis, A. mucronata, A. nudicaulis, A. nummularia, A. oblongifolia, A. obovata, A. pacifica, A. parishii, A. parryi, A. patula, A. pentandra, A. phyllostegia, A. pleiantha, A. polycarpa, A. powellii, A. prostrata, A. pusilla, A. rosea, A. saccaria, A. semibaccata, A. serenana, A. spinifera, A. suberecta, A. suckleyi, A. tatarica, A. torreyi, A. truncata, A. tularensis, A. watsonii, A. wolfii, A. wrightii
Subordinate taxa
A. elegans var. elegans, A. elegans var. fasciculata
Synonyms Obione elegans
Name authority (Moquin-Tandon) D. Dietrich: Syn. Pl. 5: 537. (1852)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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