Atriplex patula |
Atriplex hymenelytra |
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common orache, halberd-leaf orache, spear orach, spear orache, spear oracle, spear saltbush, spear saltweed, spearscal e, spearscale orache |
desert-holly |
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Habit | Herbs, monoecious or subdioecious, (1.5–)3–9(–15) dm. | Shrubs, dioecious, 3–15+ dm, as wide, unarmed. |
Stems | mostly erect and branched, branches green, obtusely angled or striate, 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. |
persistent, alternate, petiolate; blade greenish to silvery white, orbiculate to reniform or oval, 10–40 mm, as wide or wider, prominently dentate, teeth to 10 mm, permanently scurfy. |
Flowers | compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters. |
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Staminate flowers | mostly 5-merous. |
yellow to purple-brown, in clusters 3–4 mm thick, borne in panicles to 3 cm. |
Pistillate flowers | borne in inflorescences similar to staminate ones. |
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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, 2 mm wide; radicle sublateral. |
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 sessile, rather prominently veined, orbiculate to reniform, strongly compressed, 7–10 × 7–10 mm, thin, united at base, margin entire to crenate, glabrous, lacking processes. |
2n | = 36. |
= 18. |
Atriplex patula |
Atriplex hymenelytra |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | Flowering spring. |
Habitat | Widespread ruderal weed of nonsaline substrates such as fields, gardens, and roadsides | Warm desert shrub, on dry saline alluvial fans and hills |
Elevation | 0-2100 m (0-6900 ft) | 80-1200 m (300-3900 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; NV; UT
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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.) |
Atriplex hymenelytra occurs with saltbush, Larrea-Ambrosia, ephedra, and yucca. This is a handsome, rounded shrub with silvery white foliage, sometimes contrasting strongly with the peculiar substrates on which it grows. Its relationships to other of the southwestern species are recondite, but possibly it is allied to A. confertifolia, with which C. A. Hanson (1962) suggested an affinity. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 333. | FNA vol. 4, p. 376. |
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Atriplex > sect. Teutliopsis | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Pterochiton |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | A. hastata subsp. patula, A. hastata var. patula, Teutiopsis patula | Obione hymenelytra |
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1053. (1753) | (Torrey) S. Watson: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 9: 129. (1874) |
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