Atriplex obovata |
Atriplex serenana |
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broadscale, mound saltbush, New Mexico saltbush, silver saltbush |
bracteate orach, bractscale, saltscale, stinking orach |
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Habit | Subshrubs, dioecious, clump forming, mainly 2–8 dm and as wide, woody at base. | Herbs, annual, erect or sprawling, usually branched often forming tangled mats to 10 × (3–)5–20 dm, ascending branches sparsely scurfy. | ||||
Stems | stiffly erect; branchlets terete. |
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Leaves | tardily deciduous, alternate or proximal-most subopposite, shortly petiolate; blade gray green, oblong-ovate to elliptic or orbiculate, 8–30(–35) × 6–20 mm, margin entire or rarely dentate, apex rounded to retuse or obtuse. |
many, subsessile or very short petiolate; blade subconcolorous, lanceolate to oblong, elliptic, or oval, (8–)10–30(–40) × 3–12(–15) mm, margin sharply dentate to entire. |
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Staminate flowers | yellow, in clusters 2–3 mm wide, borne in panicles 6–30 cm. |
in glomerules in terminal spikes or panicles 3–20 cm, or reduced to solitary, rounded, terminal glomerule. |
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Pistillate flower(s) | in small, very numerous glomerules in axils of elongated, terminal leafy-bracteate spikes or finally paniculate. |
in small clusters, axillary. |
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Seeds | brown, 2.4–2.8 mm. |
brown, 1–1.3(–1.5) mm. |
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Fruiting | bracteoles sessile or substipitate, 4–5 × 5–9 mm, base broadly cuneate, margin sharply toothed, apical tooth subtended by 2–6 equal or smaller teeth, faces smooth or rarely tuberculate. |
bracteoles sessile or subsessile (stipe to 1 mm), cuneate-orbicular to obovate, somewhat compressed, 2.1–3.5 × (1.7–)2–3.7 mm, united 1/2 of length, margin sharply and often slenderly toothed beyond middle, faces often rather strongly veined, smooth or with 1 or more slender or flattened appendages. |
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2n | = 18. |
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Atriplex obovata |
Atriplex serenana |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | |||||
Habitat | Fine-textured substrates, with salt desert shrub and lower pinyon-juniper communities | |||||
Elevation | 1500-2000 m (4900-6600 ft) | |||||
Distribution |
AZ; CO; NM; TX; UT; Mexico
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CA; NV; nw Mexico
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Discussion | Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 371. | FNA vol. 4, p. 361. | ||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Pterochiton | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Synonyms | A. greggii, A. jonesii, A. obovata var. tuberata | |||||
Name authority | Moquin-Tandon: Chenop. Monogr. Enum., 61. (1840) | A. Nelson ex Abrams: Fl. Los Angeles, 128. (1904) | ||||
Web links |