Atriplex patula
Atriplex cordulata
common orache, halberd-leaf orache, spear orach, spear orache, spear oracle, spear saltbush, spear saltweed, spearscal e, spearscale orache
heart-leaf orach, heartscale
mostly erect and branched, branches green, obtusely angled or striate, glabrate.
slender to rather coarse, initially erect-ascending, finally spreading-ascending, scurfy when young.
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.
alternate except proximalmost ones, blade ovate to cordate-ovate, 5–15(–20) × 3–10(–13) mm;
base mostly cordate (to rounded), margin entire or denticulate, apex acute to attenuate, thickish and scurfy-tomentose.
compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters.
of both sexes mixed in small axillary clusters.
mostly 5-merous.
in glomerules in distal axils, 4–5-merous.
dimorphic: brown, 2.5–3(–3.5) mm wide, or black, 1–2 mm wide;
radicle of brown seeds subbasal to median, antrorse.
deep red-brown, 1.5–1.8 mm.
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 sessile or subsessile, round-ovate (semi-orbiculate) to deltoid-rhombic or flabellate, slightly compressed, 3–5 mm and as broad, united to middle, deeply toothed, margin with acute teeth, terminal tooth subequal to others or largest, thin and soft at margin, hard at center, scarcely though sometimes tuberculate on faces.
= 36.
= 36, 54.
Atriplex patula
Atriplex cordulata
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.)
Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Anthers red or purple; fruiting bracteoles 4-5 mm, central tooth largest; wc California | var. cordulata |
1. Anthers yellow; fruiting bracteoles 3-3.5 mm, central tooth subequal to lateral; Kern, Kings, and Tulare counties, California | var. erecticaulis |
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