Atriplex glabriuscula |
Atriplex pusilla |
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bract orache, glabrous orach, scotland orache |
dwarf orach, dwarf orache, small scale, smooth saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, monoecious, prostrate or sprawling, or sometimes erect, branched, (1–)2–10 dm; branches opposite or subopposite. | Herbs, freely branched, 0.5–2.5 dm; branches spreading to erect, typically suffused with red, slender, sparsely scurfy. | ||||||||
Stems | green and striped, often blue-green when fresh, weakly ridged, sparsely scurfy to glabrous. |
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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 except proximally, not especially numerous; blade elliptic to subelliptic or ovate, 2–12 × 3–6 mm, base acute, rounded, or subcordate, margin entire, gray to almost green scurfy. |
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Flowers | in loose glomerules, arranged in foliose, interrupted spikes or axillary, terminating stems and branches. |
solitary or paired in axils, staminate near branch ends, calyx 5-cleft. |
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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. |
brownish, 0.8–1 mm. |
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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. |
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Fruiting | bracteoles simulating tiny bracteate leaves, sessile, ovate, compressed, 1–2 × 1 mm, united to apex, abruptly acute to acuminate, entire, faces plane. |
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2n | = 18, 36. |
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Atriplex glabriuscula |
Atriplex pusilla |
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Phenology | Flowering Jun–Oct. | |||||||||
Habitat | Saline substrates in valley bottoms, playas, and along drainages with greasewood, rabbitbrush, shadscale, and sagebrush | |||||||||
Elevation | 1000-2100 m (3300-6900 ft) | |||||||||
Distribution |
CT; MA; ME; NH; PA; AB; MB; NB; NS; PE; QC; Europe
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CA; NV; OR |
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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.) |
Atriplex pusilla is closely similar to, and possibly a near ally of, the geographically disjunct A. parishii complex of the Great Valley of California, which it simulates in all main features. The very tiny fruiting bracteoles, very difficult to discern among the distal bracteate leaves, are characteristic and apparently closely similar only to those of A. parishii var. minuscula. The red stems are almost universal in plants of this species. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 4. | FNA vol. 4, p. 356. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Atriplex > sect. Teutliopsis | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Pusillae | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Synonyms | Obione pusilla | |||||||||
Name authority | Edmondston: Fl. Shetland, 39. (1845) | (Torrey) S. Watson: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 9: 110. (1874) | ||||||||
Web links |