Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Atriplex powellii var. minuticarpa

Atriplex sect. Obione
Photo is of parent taxon

smallbract orach
Habit Herbs, monoecious, (0.5–)1–4.5 dm. Plants usually annual, usually monoecious.
Leaves

on petioles 0.3–1.5(–2) cm proximally, becoming sessile distally, blade inconspicuously 3-veined, deltoid-ovate to orbicular-ovate or cordate-ovate, 5–20(–30) mm and as wide, base broadly cuneate to subcordate, apex acute to shortly acuminate, scurfy.

with Kranz anatomy.
Flowers

of both sexes intermixed in axillary glomerules.

Staminate flowers

5-merous.

with calyx lobes not crested.
Pistillate flowers

lacking or rarely with a perianth (in A. covillei), enclosed by a pair of bracteoles.
Seeds

yellow-brown, 0.9–1.2 mm.

radicle lateral or superior.
Fruiting

bracteoles ovate-oblong or oval to obovate, 1.5–2.5 × 1–2.5 mm, subentire to tridentate apically, median tooth largest, lateral lobes often rounded and sometimes constricted basally, giving an overall violin shape, sometimes slenderly appendaged marginally and bicristate on at least 1 face, but typically unappendaged on faces.

Bracteoles

cuneate to ovate or obovate, united at least to 1/2 of length, faces with tubercles or crests or smooth.

Atriplex powellii var. minuticarpa

Atriplex sect. Obione
Phenology Flowering spring–fall.
Habitat Tununk and Blue Gate members Mancos Shale Formation and on Morrison Formation, and likely on other fine-textured saline substrates, with mat-atriplex, greasewood, rabbitbrush, and shadscale communities
Elevation 1200-1400 m (3900-4600 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
UT
United States; Mexico
Discussion

This entity is completely within the distribution of var. powellii in southeast Utah, where it occurs on the fine-textured saline and seleniferous silts and clays of exposed Jurassic and Cretaceous strata. The habits of growth of the two taxa are essentially identical, and the shape of both the foliage and bracteate leaves is essentially the same. The fruiting bracteoles of var. minuticarpa, though small, occasionally bear finger-like surficial appendages and share the rounded lateral lobes marginal to the terminal cusp and violin shape with var. powellii. This small-bracteolate plant evidently occupies a much more limited set of ecological circumstances than its near ally.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Species 28 (23 in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 4, p. 353. FNA vol. 4, p. 346.
Parent taxa Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Argenteae > Atriplex powellii Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione
Sibling taxa
A. powellii var. powellii
Subordinate taxa
Synonyms A. minuticarpa
Name authority (Stutz & G. L. Chu) S. L. Welsh: Rhodora 102: 421. (2001) unknown
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers