Atriplex glabriuscula |
Atriplex klebergorum |
|||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
bract orache, glabrous orach, scotland orache |
Kleberg orach, Kleberg's saltbush |
|||||||||
Habit | Herbs, monoecious, prostrate or sprawling, or sometimes erect, branched, (1–)2–10 dm; branches opposite or subopposite. | Herbs, with ligneous vertical taproot 5–9 mm thick; bark pale. | ||||||||
Stems | green and striped, often blue-green when fresh, weakly ridged, sparsely scurfy to glabrous. |
erect, diffuse; branches alternate, numerous, horizontal or distally ascending, terete, 1.5–4 dm, densely white farinose when young, glabrate in age; bark becoming pale brownish white and flaky; internodes mostly shorter than 1(–2.4) cm. |
||||||||
Leaves | 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. |
alternate, proximalmost subopposite, sessile; blade ovate-deltoid, 0.5–1.5(–2.5) × 5–12(–15) mm, rather firm and flat, base rounded, truncate, or slightly clasping, margin entire or toothed, apex acute, very densely canescent-farinose with a greenish yellow tinge. |
||||||||
Flowers | in loose glomerules, arranged in foliose, interrupted spikes or axillary, terminating stems and branches. |
sessile, axillary, inconspicuous, mostly in leafy lateral branches with extremely short internodes, arising toward tips of secondary branches. |
||||||||
Staminate flowers | in most distal axils, 2 mm wide; sepals 3–5, mostly hyaline, curved elliptic, 1.5–1.7 mm, mucronulate, farinose dorsally. |
|||||||||
Pistillate flowers | densely farinose; bracteoles adnate to ovary. |
|||||||||
Seeds | 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 reddish brown, round-lenticular, 1.5 mm wide, shining; radicle superior. |
||||||||
Bracteoles | 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. |
|||||||||
Fruiting | bracteoles variably and irregularly 3–7-cleft, ovate-orbicular, 3.1–4.7 × (3.2–)4–7 mm, typically somewhat constricted below middle, with terminal lobes (1–)1.5–2.8 mm, densely scurfy, faces doubly cristate or smooth. |
|||||||||
2n | = 18, 36. |
|||||||||
Atriplex glabriuscula |
Atriplex klebergorum |
|||||||||
Phenology | Flowering summer. | |||||||||
Habitat | In silty or clay loam soils | |||||||||
Distribution |
CT; MA; ME; NH; PA; AB; MB; NB; NS; PE; QC; Europe
|
TX; of conservation concern; near sea level |
||||||||
Discussion | 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.) |
Of conservation concern. The species was noted by its author as apparently belonging in sect. Argenteae Standley; I concur with that alignment. The overall shape of the bracteoles with a subterminal constriction is reminiscent of those of Atriplex powellii, but the bracteole shape is otherwise distinctive, and the long marginal teeth and occasional elongate cristate processes on the faces are unmatched elsewhere in the Argenteae. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
||||||||
Key |
|
|||||||||
Source | FNA vol. 4. | FNA vol. 4, p. 353. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Atriplex > sect. Teutliopsis | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Argenteae | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Name authority | Edmondston: Fl. Shetland, 39. (1845) | M. C. Johnston: SouthW. Naturalist 6: 49. (1961) | ||||||||
Web links |