Atriplex patula
Atriplex amnicola
common orache, halberd-leaf orache, spear orach, spear orache, spear oracle, spear saltbush, spear saltweed, spearscal e, spearscale orache
swamp saltbush
mostly erect and branched, branches green, obtusely angled or striate, glabrate.
alternate except the proximalmost, petiolate;
blade green on both sides, rhombic-lanceolate to lanceolate, oblong, or narrowly lance-oblong or hastate-ovate, 25–120 × 3–40(–75) mm, entire or toothed, proximal ones broadly cuneate or sometimes hastate subbasally with obliquely antrorse basal lobes, distal cauline leaves lanceolate and entire.
short petiolate;
blade elliptic to narrowly oblong or narrowly hastate with short divaricate basal lobes, 10–25 mm, margin entire or remotely dentate, apex obtuse to acute.
compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters.
mostly 5-merous.
in compact glomerules 5 mm thick, forming terminal spikes.
in axillary clusters and forming short, dense terminal spikes.
dimorphic: brown, 2.5–3(–3.5) mm wide, or black, 1–2 mm wide;
radicle of brown seeds subbasal to median, antrorse.
circular.
bracteoles green becoming black, rhombic to rhombic-triangular, or ovate-rhombic, compressed, ± uniformly sized, 2–7(–20) mm, base mostly hastate, acute, margin united almost to middle, entire or sparingly toothed, surfaces tuberculate.
bracteoles somewhat rhombic to semicircular, biconvex, 4–6 mm wide, with a short hard turbinate base, thick and hard throughout or with a herbaceous margin, lacking appendages.
= 36.
Atriplex patula
Atriplex amnicola
Atriplex patula appears to have been a rather recent introduction in North America from Eurasia, not arriving perhaps until sometime in the early to mid-eighteenth century. It simulates depauperate specimens of A. dioica, A. glabriuscula, and other similar species when leaves are reduced to a near-linear profile. Such specimens are difficult if not impossible to assign to any of the species.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
This is a singular, large, mostly dioecious shrub well established on the beach at Malibu, California. It produces abundant, hard, rhombic fruiting bracteoles. In its native western Australia, it occurs in coastal regions and inland along creeks and the outer margins of salt lakes.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
- Local floras:
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CA, 
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WA - Local Web sites: CalFlora, CalPhotos,
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PNW Herbaria 
WildflowerSearch
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