Atriplex glabriuscula
Atriplex pentandra
bract orache, glabrous orach, scotland orache
seas hore orach
green and striped, often blue-green when fresh, weakly ridged, sparsely scurfy to glabrous.
obtusely angled, finely 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.
sessile or short petiolate;
blade paler abaxially, oblong or rhombic-ovate to broadly obovate or narrowly oblong or narrowly elliptic, 10–30 × (1–)3–15 mm, thin, base rounded to cuneate, margin repand-dentate or sinuate-dentate to undulate or distal ones or all of them entire, apex rounded to acute, mucronate, densely white scurfy abaxially, grayish green and usually glabrate adaxially.
in loose glomerules, arranged in foliose, interrupted spikes or axillary, terminating stems and branches.
in short, dense, naked terminal spikes or panicles;
calyx 5-cleft, lobes green keeled.
fascicled in axils.
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.
brown, 1–1.5 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 or with stipes to 0.5 mm, broadly cuneate-orbiculate, compressed, (2–) 2.5–4.5 × (1.5–)2.6–5 mm, usually as broad as or broader than long, much thickened at maturity, united only at truncate or broadly cuneate base, margin deeply and acutely dentate, faces with 2, sometimes swollen, dentate crests or covered with irregular, conic-acute, corky tubercles, seldom smooth.
= 18, 36.
Atriplex glabriuscula
Atriplex pentandra
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.)
D. S. Correll and M. C. Johnston (1970), treated both Atriplex texana and A. wardii at the specific level. The diagnostic features used to distinguish them, dentate versus entire leaf blades and smooth versus tuberculate faces of fruiting bracteoles, fail singly and in combination. Both taxa were regarded by H. M. Hall and F. E. Clements (1923) as variants of typical A. pentandra, and this worker tentatively agrees with those authors’ conclusions. Specimens from Galveston, Texas—the type locality of A. wardii—are apparently intermediate with A. mucronata (see below) and form the basis on which A. wardii was founded. Some of those specimens have been annotated by me and others as A. mucronata. The plants have entire leaves more closely matching those of A. mucronata, but the small fruiting bracteoles, though usually lacking tubercles on the faces, are of similar proportions to those of typical A. pentandra. Atriplex pentandra and A. mucronata are certainly very closely allied.
(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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