Atriplex patula |
Atriplex elegans |
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common orache, halberd-leaf orache, spear orach, spear orache, spear oracle, spear saltbush, spear saltweed, spearscal e, spearscale orache |
wheelscale, wheelscale orach, wheelscale saltbush, white-scale saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, monoecious or subdioecious, (1.5–)3–9(–15) dm. | Herbs, annual (or sometimes perennial?). | ||||
Stems | mostly erect and branched, branches green, obtusely angled or striate, glabrate. |
ascending or procumbent to erect, stramineous or whitish, simple or much branched at base, obtusely angled in age, mainly 0.5–4.5 dm, slender or stout, scurfy to glabrate. |
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Leaves | 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. |
many, subsessile or shortly petiolate; blade elliptic to spatulate, oblanceolate, oblong, or obovate, 5–30(–35) × 2–8(–12) mm, base cuneate to attenuate, margin entire or irregularly dentate, densely scurfy abaxially, usually green and glabrate adaxially. |
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Flowers | compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters. |
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Staminate flowers | mostly 5-merous. |
with 3–5-parted perianth. |
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Pistillate flowers | intermixed with staminate in small axillary clusters. |
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Seeds | dimorphic: brown, 2.5–3(–3.5) mm wide, or black, 1–2 mm wide; radicle of brown seeds subbasal to median, antrorse. |
brown, 1–1.5 mm wide. |
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Fruiting | 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 subsessile or short stipitate, orbiculate, strongly compressed, 2–4 mm and as wide, united except at thin margin, margin dentate, terminal teeth often prominent, faces smooth or with cristate appendages (thornberi phase). |
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2n | = 36. |
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Atriplex patula |
Atriplex elegans |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | |||||
Habitat | Widespread ruderal weed of nonsaline substrates such as fields, gardens, and roadsides | |||||
Elevation | 0-2100 m (0-6900 ft) | |||||
Distribution |
AK; AL; CA; CO; DC; DE; IA; ID; IL; IN; MA; MD; ME; MI; MO; MT; NC; ND; NH; NV; NY; OH; PA; RI; SD; UT; VA; VT; WI; WY; AB; BC; MB; NB; NF; NS; ON; QC; SK; YT; Europe; Asia; n Africa
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AZ; CA; NM; NV; TX; UT; n Mexico
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Discussion | 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.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 333. | FNA vol. 4, p. 364. | ||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Atriplex > sect. Teutliopsis | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Synonyms | A. hastata subsp. patula, A. hastata var. patula, Teutiopsis patula | Obione elegans | ||||
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1053. (1753) | (Moquin-Tandon) D. Dietrich: Syn. Pl. 5: 537. (1852) | ||||
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