Atriplex patula |
Atriplex pusilla |
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common orache, halberd-leaf orache, spear orach, spear orache, spear oracle, spear saltbush, spear saltweed, spearscal e, spearscale orache |
dwarf orach, dwarf orache, small scale, smooth saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, monoecious or subdioecious, (1.5–)3–9(–15) dm. | Herbs, freely branched, 0.5–2.5 dm; branches spreading to erect, typically suffused with red, slender, sparsely scurfy. |
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. |
alternate except proximally, not especially numerous; blade elliptic to subelliptic or ovate, 2–12 × 3–6 mm, base acute, rounded, or subcordate, margin entire, gray to almost green scurfy. |
Flowers | compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters. |
solitary or paired in axils, staminate near branch ends, calyx 5-cleft. |
Staminate flowers | mostly 5-merous. |
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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. |
brownish, 0.8–1 mm. |
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 simulating tiny bracteate leaves, sessile, ovate, compressed, 1–2 × 1 mm, united to apex, abruptly acute to acuminate, entire, faces plane. |
2n | = 36. |
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Atriplex patula |
Atriplex pusilla |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | Flowering Jun–Oct. |
Habitat | Widespread ruderal weed of nonsaline substrates such as fields, gardens, and roadsides | Saline substrates in valley bottoms, playas, and along drainages with greasewood, rabbitbrush, shadscale, and sagebrush |
Elevation | 0-2100 m (0-6900 ft) | 1000-2100 m (3300-6900 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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CA; NV; OR |
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 pusilla is closely similar to, and possibly a near ally of, the geographically disjunct A. parishii complex of the Great Valley of California, which it simulates in all main features. The very tiny fruiting bracteoles, very difficult to discern among the distal bracteate leaves, are characteristic and apparently closely similar only to those of A. parishii var. minuscula. The red stems are almost universal in plants of this species. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 333. | FNA vol. 4, p. 356. |
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Atriplex > sect. Teutliopsis | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Pusillae |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | A. hastata subsp. patula, A. hastata var. patula, Teutiopsis patula | Obione pusilla |
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 1053. (1753) | (Torrey) S. Watson: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 9: 110. (1874) |
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