Atriplex glabriuscula
Atriplex californica
bract orache, glabrous orach, scotland orache
California orach, California saltbush
green and striped, often blue-green when fresh, weakly ridged, sparsely scurfy to glabrous.
many branched, subterete, 1.5–5 dm, white scurfy when young.
petiole 0.2–2.5(–3.5) cm;
blade all entire or some or all triangular or lance-hastate with lobes spreading to antrorse, 5–100 × 3–80 mm, base abruptly to narrowly cuneate, entire or irregularly toothed.
numerous, often crowded, alternate or proximalmost opposite;
blade narrowly lanceolate to narrowly oblanceolate or elliptic, 4–20 × 1–5 mm, acute at both ends, gray scurfy.
in loose glomerules, arranged in foliose, interrupted spikes or axillary, terminating stems and branches.
in terminal bracteate spikes, or mixed with pistillate in rather dense axillary clusters, 4-merous.
dimorphic: brown, 2.5–4 mm wide (often the only ones present), or black, (1.2–)1.5–2.9(–3) mm wide;
radicle median, ± antrorse, of brown seed basal and spreading.
dark (black), 1–2 mm.
green, becoming black or reddish to yellow brown, sessile or some short stipitate, venation obscure, ovate-triangular to rhombic-triangular, 5–13 mm, margin united almost to middle, with few irregular teeth or entire, apex abruptly acuminate, faces irregularly muricate, tuberculate, or smooth, inflated, spongy inner layer strongly developed at bracteole base.
bracteoles sessile, rhombic-ovate to ovate, scarcely united, 2.5–4 mm, margin entire, acute.
= 18, 36.
Atriplex glabriuscula
Atriplex californica
Varieties 3 (3 in the flora).
Members of the Atriplex glabriuscula complex occupy saline or brackish marshes and saline coastal strands mainly in the eastern maritime provinces of Canada, with extensions in similar habitats into the northeastern United States. They are seldom, if ever, ruderal weeds and appear to be indigenous or perhaps early introduced in some part from similar European habitats. The constituent taxa have been regarded at specific level (P. M. Taschereau 1972; I. J. Bassett et al. 1983). They are, however, alike in all major morphologic features, and are apparently closely allied. For those who wish to treat them at specific level, the names are supplied in the synonymy.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
H. M. Hall and F. E. Clements (1923) placed great emphasis on the inferior radicle, dioecious habit, and free bracts in stating that there are no close relatives of Atriplex californica in North America. P. C. Standley (1916) regarded the radicle as lateral or superior, not inferior, and placed the species at the beginning of his treatment of the American species. Plants of A. californica, however, form a mirror-image, matched pair with A. watsonii, with which they share habit, leaf conformation, staminate glomerules arranged, at least partially, in terminal interrupted spikes, and Kranz anatomy, but from which they differ in the radicle position, valves of the fruiting bracteoles free beyond the middle, monoecious habit, and mostly alternate leaves. The interpretation by Hall and Clements of radicle position as fundamental is made problematic by the apparent random occurrence of a great many morphologic features from place to place within the genus and often within the taxon. Each character fails individually as having definitive taxonomic importance, making difficult or impossible an ultimately satisfactory phylogenetic arrangement. It is not, however, the character that makes the species, rather, it is the entire syndrome of features that constitutes the taxon. Most certainly A. californica is more closely allied to American taxa than to those from other regions of the world.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Bracteoles thin throughout; black seeds 2.0-2.9 mm; bracteoles entire or with tooth on each margin, ovate-triangular | var. acadiensis |
1. Bracteoles often if not always spongy-thickened at the base; black seeds rare or lacking, or of various size; bracteoles variously toothed | → 2 |
2. Bracteoles sessile or nearly so; inflorescence with leafy bracts throughout; black seeds rare (or lacking), 1.5-2.5 mm; United States and Canada | var. glabriuscula |
2. Bracteoles, at least some axillary ones, short stipitate; inflorescence with leafy bracts only near base; black seeds 1.2-2 mm; Canada | var. franktonii |
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