Atriplex pentandra |
Atriplex saccaria |
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seas hore orach |
sack saltbush, sack saltweed, stalk orach, stalk orache |
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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. | Herbs, erect, forming rounded clumps. | ||||||||
Stems | obtusely angled, finely scurfy when young. |
mainly 0.5–4(–5) dm; stems usually branched from base, terete, stout, angled; herbage scurfy. |
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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. |
alternate or proximalmost subopposite, short petiolate or distal ones sessile; petiole 2–5 mm; blade cordate-ovate or subreniform to ovate to deltoid-ovate or oval, mainly 6–40 × 4–30 mm, base truncate to subcordate or broadly cuneate, margin entire or in some subhastately lobed or sometimes undulate-dentate, apex acute to rounded. |
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Staminate flowers | in short, dense, naked terminal spikes or panicles; calyx 5-cleft, lobes green keeled. |
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Pistillate flowers | fascicled in axils. |
usually in fascicles of 1–3 in proximal axils. |
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Seeds | brown, 1–1.5 mm. |
brownish to whitish, 1.5–2.3 mm. |
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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 monomorphic or dimorphic, larger ones on stipes (2–)4–8(–15) mm, others sessile, united at base, round-triangular or suborbicular, 4–6 mm, irregularly and coarsely dentate and with ± densely beset with flat, cristate, or hornlike appendages, smaller bracteoles (lacking or rare in var. asterocarpa) in same axils, oblong to cuneate, 3–4 mm, apex truncate, dentate only at summit, faces smooth. |
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Staminate | glomerules in distal axils or in short, naked, terminal (early deciduous) panicles; flowers with 5-parted calyx. |
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2n | = 18. |
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Atriplex pentandra |
Atriplex saccaria |
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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; CO; NM; UT; WY
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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 3 (3 in the flora). (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. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Saccariae | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Synonyms | Axyris pentandra, A. texana, A. wardii | A. truncata var. saccaria, Obione saccaria | ||||||||
Name authority | (Jacquin) Standley: in N. L. Britton et al., N. Amer. Fl. 21: 54. (1916) | S. Watson: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 9: 112. (1874) | ||||||||
Web links |