Atriplex pentandra |
Atriplex gardneri |
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seas hore orach |
Gardner's orache, Gardner's sagebrush, Gardner's saltbrush, Gardner's saltbush, Nuttall's saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, annual or perennial, sprawling to erect, often suffrutescent at the base, much branched and clump-forming, 3–10 dm. | Shrubs or subshrubs, dioecious or monoecious, 1–10 dm, unarmed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stems | obtusely angled, finely scurfy when young. |
prostrate to ascending, or less commonly erect. |
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Leaves | sessile or short petiolate; blade paler abaxially, oblong or rhombic-ovate to broadly obovate or narrowly oblong or narrowly elliptic, 10–30 × (1–)3–15 mm, thin, base rounded to cuneate, margin repand-dentate or sinuate-dentate to undulate or distal ones or all of them entire, apex rounded to acute, mucronate, densely white scurfy abaxially, grayish green and usually glabrate adaxially. |
± persistent, alternate or opposite to subopposite (especially proximally), sessile to petiolate; blade linear to oblanceolate, obovate, spatulate, or orbiculate, 5–55 × 2–25 mm, base cuneate, margin entire (rarely dentate), apex retuse to obtuse or rounded. |
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Staminate flowers | in short, dense, naked terminal spikes or panicles; calyx 5-cleft, lobes green keeled. |
yellow or brown, in numerous clusters 2–4 mm wide, in spikes or panicles 2–30 cm. |
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Pistillate flowers | fascicled in axils. |
in spikes or panicles to 30 cm. |
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Seeds | brown, 1–1.5 mm. |
tan or brown, 1.5–2.5 mm wide. |
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Fruiting | bracteoles sessile or with stipes to 0.5 mm, broadly cuneate-orbiculate, compressed, (2–) 2.5–4.5 × (1.5–)2.6–5 mm, usually as broad as or broader than long, much thickened at maturity, united only at truncate or broadly cuneate base, margin deeply and acutely dentate, faces with 2, sometimes swollen, dentate crests or covered with irregular, conic-acute, corky tubercles, seldom smooth. |
bracteoles 2–9 × 2–9 mm, bearing tubercles or wings or tubercles aligned in 4 rows or rarely smooth, apex toothed and usually with 2 or more lateral teeth. |
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Atriplex pentandra |
Atriplex gardneri |
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Phenology | Flowering summer–fall. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Sandy seashores, coastal salt marshes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 0-50 m (0-200 ft) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distribution |
AL; CT; FL; GA; LA; MA; MS; NC; SC; TX; West Indies; South America (Venezuela and Colombia to Peru) |
AZ; CA; CO; ID; MT; ND; NE; NM; NV; OR; SD; UT; WA; WY; AB; MB; SK; Mexico
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Discussion | D. S. Correll and M. C. Johnston (1970), treated both Atriplex texana and A. wardii at the specific level. The diagnostic features used to distinguish them, dentate versus entire leaf blades and smooth versus tuberculate faces of fruiting bracteoles, fail singly and in combination. Both taxa were regarded by H. M. Hall and F. E. Clements (1923) as variants of typical A. pentandra, and this worker tentatively agrees with those authors’ conclusions. Specimens from Galveston, Texas—the type locality of A. wardii—are apparently intermediate with A. mucronata (see below) and form the basis on which A. wardii was founded. Some of those specimens have been annotated by me and others as A. mucronata. The plants have entire leaves more closely matching those of A. mucronata, but the small fruiting bracteoles, though usually lacking tubercles on the faces, are of similar proportions to those of typical A. pentandra. Atriplex pentandra and A. mucronata are certainly very closely allied. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Varieties 7 (7 in the flora). This is a widely distributed complex of intergrading genotypes of great phenotypic plasticity. The members occur commonly in fine-textured saline substrates in much of the western Great Plains and in the Intermountain Region. Diploids, triploids, tetraploids, and hexaploids (and higher polyploids, all multiples of the base number 9) are known within the complex, and hybrids are known not only between the constituents but with the other woody species which they contact, i.e., Atriplex canescens, A. confertifolia, and A. corrugata. Indeed, a case can be made for treating both A. gardneri and A. canescens within an expanded A. canescens. They are regarded here as forming two intergrading complexes, with some of the constituent varieties placed equally well within either of the species aggregations. The treatment essentially follows the alignment of taxa suggested by C. A. Hanson (1962), with the exception that they are reduced to varietal status and var. bonnevillensis and var. aptera are placed within the A. gardneri phase and not with A. canescens. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 362. | FNA vol. 4. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Pterochiton | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Axyris pentandra, A. texana, A. wardii | Obione gardneri, A. nuttallii subsp. gardneri, A. nuttallii var. gardneri | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | (Jacquin) Standley: in N. L. Britton et al., N. Amer. Fl. 21: 54. (1916) | (Moquin-Tandon) D. Dietrich: Syn. Pl. 5: 537. (1852) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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