Atriplex patula
Atriplex holocarpa
common orache, halberd-leaf orache, spear orach, spear orache, spear oracle, spear saltbush, spear saltweed, spearscal e, spearscale orache
pop saltbush
mostly erect and branched, branches green, obtusely angled or striate, glabrate.
branching, diffuse or procumbent, softly scurfy-tomentose.
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;
petiole to 1/2 as long as blade;
blade obovate or rhombic to deltoid, 10–30 mm, base obtuse, margin sinuate to serrate, apex irregularly toothed, acute.
compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters.
in axillary glomerules, staminate in distal axils surrounded by pistillate flowers, these only and usually few together in most axils, very small and globular at anthesis.
mostly 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.
broadly elliptic;
radical lateral, erect.
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, obovoid-globular, fused, scarcely compressed, 8–12 mm, of loosely fibrous and spongy consistency, with thin membranous epidermis and thin, inner membrane, opening at summit closed by 2 erect, appressed, entire or 3-toothed valves, apex shortly apiculate, not flattened at top.
= 36.
Atriplex patula
Atriplex holocarpa
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.)
I have seen no specimens of this species and therefore it is not mapped. H. M. Hall and F. E. Clements (1923) in discussion of the related Atriplex lindleyi (as A. halimoides) noted that it has “been grown in American gardens with the thought of using them as forage plants, but…has [not] been found suitable for general planting. P. G. Wilson (1984) indicated that the species is relatively widespread in Australia, mainly in southern parts, where it grows “often on flood-plains or sandy flats.”
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
- Local floras:
BC, 
CA, 
OR, 
WA - Local Web sites: CalFlora, CalPhotos,
Flora NW, 
Go Botany, 
IL Wildflowers, 
MD Biodiversity, 
MI Flora, 
MO Plants, 
PNW Herbaria 
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist (observations)
USDA Plants Database- LBJ Wildflower Center
- SEINet
- Plants of the World Online
- Encyclopedia of Life
- Wikipedia
- Google Image Search
