Atriplex patula
Atriplex matamorensis
common orache, halberd-leaf orache, spear orach, spear orache, spear oracle, spear saltbush, spear saltweed, spearscal e, spearscale orache
matamoros saltbush
mostly erect and branched, branches green, obtusely angled or striate, glabrate.
terete, slender, densely leafy, rather sparsely and closely scurfy.
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.
possibly Kranz type (difficult to determine), mostly opposite;
blade oblong or oblong-lanceolate, 2–5 mm, subequal to internodes, broadest at middle, apex acute, densely grayish scurfy.
compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters.
mostly 5-merous.
solitary or in small, axillary glomerules in stout leafy spikes.
dimorphic: brown, 2.5–3(–3.5) mm wide, or black, 1–2 mm wide;
radicle of brown seeds subbasal to median, antrorse.
yellowish, 1 mm wide.
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, suborbiculate, strongly compressed, 2–3 mm and broad, united to beyond middle, dentate to near base, triangular teeth acute, terminal 1 longest, faces 3-veined, scurfy.
= 36.
Atriplex patula
Atriplex matamorensis
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.)
The quelite cenizo is a very distinctive, small, bushy perennial with numerous, ascending branches and tiny leaves. It is here tentatively placed adjacent to the other dioecious, herbaceous perennial, Atriplex watsonii, from which it differs in many ways (compare descriptions). Possibly its near relatives are in adjacent Mexico, which is beyond the consideration of the present paper; certainly it is one of the most distinctive of the herbaceous taxa. According to H. M. Hall and F. E. Clements (1923), the relationships of this species lie with A. watsonii, but it is more closely similar to A. elegans in the strongly compressed, nearly orbicular, and evenly dentate bracteoles. However, both A. watsonii and A. matamorensis have opposite leaves and share the feature of the pericarp being dilated around the thickened stigma bases.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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