Atriplex patula
Atriplex nummularia
common orache, halberd-leaf orache, spear orach, spear orache, spear oracle, spear saltbush, spear saltweed, spearscal e, spearscale orache
bluegreen saltbush, old man saltbush
mostly erect and branched, branches green, obtusely angled or striate, glabrate.
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.
mostly alternate, short petiolate;
blade broadly ovate, rhombic to suborbiculate, (15–)30–65 mm, about as wide, thick, base cuneate, margin sinuate-dentate, apex obtuse to rounded.
compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters.
mostly 5-merous.
crowded in glomerules on short or elongate, interrupted spikes in large paniculate clusters to 20 cm.
in dense, compound panicles, or axillary, or along staminate panicle branches.
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.
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, reticulately veined, rhombic to orbiculate, 5–12(–15) × 5–11 mm, papery all over or thick and corky, margin subentire to coarsely few-toothed.
= 36.
Atriplex patula
Atriplex nummularia
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 nummularia is a rather coarse, broad-leaved, vigorous shrub, which has spread from some early introduction from Australia, possibly for use in stabilizing land.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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