Atriplex lentiformis
Atriplex subg. Pterochiton
big saltbrush, big saltbush, quail bush
persistent, alternate, petiolate;
blade gray-green, deltate to rhombic, ovate, or oblong-elliptic, 5–50 × 5–50 mm, base truncate to subhastate, margin entire to repand or subhastately lobed, apex rounded to obtuse, scurfy.
with Kranz anatomy, usually alternate, petiolate or sessile;
blade variously shaped, margin entire, hastately lobed, or variously dentate.
yellow, in clusters 1–2 mm wide, borne in panicles 0.5–5 dm.
in axillary glomerules or more typically in naked terminal spikes or spicate panicles.
with less complex panicles.
lacking perianth.
brown, 0.8–1.6 mm wide.
erect;
radicle superior or sublateral (in A. hymenelytra, A. lentiformis, and A. torreyi).
bracteoles sessile, orbiculate to oval, greatly compressed, mainly 3–4.5 mm and wide, crenulate, apex rounded.
bracteoles sessile or stipitate, united beyond middle to apex, variously shaped, winged or wingless, margin entire or toothed to lobed, faces tuberculate or lacking tubercles.
= 18.
Atriplex lentiformis
Atriplex subg. Pterochiton
Materials of big saltbush from the coastal and near coastal regions of California have somewhat broader, merely ovate, rounded leaves, and they have been regarded either at species level as Atriplex breweri S. Watson or at either varietal or subspecific level (see synonymy). The plants intergrade completely in interior situations with typical A. lentiformis, and their recognition at taxonomic level seems superfluous. C. A. Hanson (1962) noted the existence of putative hybrids between A. lentiformis and the herbaceous species A. leucophylla and A. davidsonii. Putative hybrids are also known between this species and A. canescens.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Species 14 (14 in the flora).
E. Ulbrich (1934) circumscribed section Deserticola to include all of the shrubby species of Atriplex except for Atriplex canescens, which he included within Obione subgenus Pterochiton. The name Deserticola was taken by J. McNeill et al. (1983) to include not only A. canescens per se, but representatives of other groups containing woody taxa, as treated by P. C. Standley. Atriplex canescens is known to form hybrids with numerous other taxa of woody Atriplex. Thus, most of the woody species are in some large part closely allied and capable of hybridization to a greater or lesser extent. Members of the subgenus, despite their near relationships, also show affinities that lead back through time to some ancestor or ancestors common to both them and with those of subgenus Obione. They do not, however, appear to have arisen as end points of evolution from various places within that subgenus, i.e., the subgenus Pterochiton appears to be monophyletic.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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