Atriplex patula |
Atriplex linearis |
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common orache, halberd-leaf orache, spear orach, spear orache, spear oracle, spear saltbush, spear saltweed, spearscal e, spearscale orache |
slenderleaf saltbush, thinleaf fourwing saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, monoecious or subdioecious, (1.5–)3–9(–15) dm. | Shrubs dioecious, erect, mainly 10–25 dm; branchlets slender, terete. |
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. |
sessile; blade narrowly linear-elliptic, 10–50 × 2–3 mm, firm, revolute, often acute apically. |
Flowers | compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters. |
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Staminate flowers | mostly 5-merous. |
in glomerules borne in slender interrupted mostly paniculate spikes. |
Pistillate flowers | paniculate or in few-flowered axillary glomerules. |
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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. |
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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 sessile or subsessile, lanceolate to ovate, 4–6 mm, about as wide, each bract with a pair of thin wings 3 mm broad or less, irregularly dentate or laciniate, free tips of bracts much exceeding the wings. |
2n | = 36. |
= 18. |
Atriplex patula |
Atriplex linearis |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | Flowering spring–fall. |
Habitat | Widespread ruderal weed of nonsaline substrates such as fields, gardens, and roadsides | Saline deserts, with shadscale, Canotia, Yucca, Opuntia, Rhus, and Eriogonum |
Elevation | 0-2100 m (0-6900 ft) | 0-800 m (0-2600 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; nw Mexico (Baja California, Sonora)
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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.) |
Specimens of Atriplex canescens var. macilenta resemble A. linearis. The taxa have been placed together by some previous workers. Nevertheless, the stems of A. linearis are consistently more slender, the leaves proportionally narrower, and the bracts, though smaller, more closely simulate those of A. canescens. Its diploid nature signals a different evolutionary pathway than that for most of A. canescens, considered broadly. Narrow leaves occur within A. canescens, in the broad sense, sometimes with geographic correlation, sometimes not. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 333. | FNA vol. 4, p. 381. |
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 | A. canescens subsp. linearis, A. canescens var. linearis |
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1053. (1753) | S. Watson: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 24: 72. (1889) |
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