Atriplex patula
Atriplex wolfii
common orache, halberd-leaf orache, spear orach, spear orache, spear oracle, spear saltbush, spear saltweed, spearscal e, spearscale orache
slender orach, Wolf's saltweed
mostly erect and branched, branches green, obtusely angled or striate, glabrate.
simple or more commonly branched throughout, mainly 0.7–3.5 dm, branches terete;
herbage 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.
blade concolorous, linear to narrowly lanceolate, mainly 4–25 × 1–3 mm.
compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters.
very small, both sexes in the same sessile, axillary clusters.
mostly 5-merous.
sepals 5.
dimorphic: brown, 2.5–3(–3.5) mm wide, or black, 1–2 mm wide;
radicle of brown seeds subbasal to median, antrorse.
brown, 1–2 mm.
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, ovate to cuneate in outline, 1.5–2.7 × 1.1–2.1 mm, apex truncate to attenuate, faces smooth or tuberculate.
= 36.
Atriplex patula
Atriplex wolfii
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.)
Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Fruiting bracteoles with lateral distalmost lobes much larger and broader than median one; sc Colorado | var. wolfii |
1. Fruiting bracteoles with distalmost lobe typically but not always larger and broader than any lateral lobes, comprising much of bract length; nw Colorado, sw Wyoming, and c to ne Utah. | var. tenuissima |
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