Atriplex saccaria |
Atriplex elegans |
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sack saltbush, sack saltweed, stalk orach, stalk orache |
wheelscale, wheelscale orach, wheelscale saltbush, white-scale saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, erect, forming rounded clumps. | Herbs, annual (or sometimes perennial?). | ||||||||||||
Stems | mainly 0.5–4(–5) dm; stems usually branched from base, terete, stout, angled; herbage scurfy. |
ascending or procumbent to erect, stramineous or whitish, simple or much branched at base, obtusely angled in age, mainly 0.5–4.5 dm, slender or stout, scurfy to glabrate. |
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Leaves | 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. |
many, subsessile or shortly petiolate; blade elliptic to spatulate, oblanceolate, oblong, or obovate, 5–30(–35) × 2–8(–12) mm, base cuneate to attenuate, margin entire or irregularly dentate, densely scurfy abaxially, usually green and glabrate adaxially. |
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Staminate flowers | with 3–5-parted perianth. |
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Pistillate flowers | usually in fascicles of 1–3 in proximal axils. |
intermixed with staminate in small axillary clusters. |
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Seeds | brownish to whitish, 1.5–2.3 mm. |
brown, 1–1.5 mm wide. |
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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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Fruiting | 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. |
bracteoles subsessile or short stipitate, orbiculate, strongly compressed, 2–4 mm and as wide, united except at thin margin, margin dentate, terminal teeth often prominent, faces smooth or with cristate appendages (thornberi phase). |
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2n | = 18. |
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Atriplex saccaria |
Atriplex elegans |
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Distribution |
AZ; CO; NM; UT; WY
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AZ; CA; NM; NV; TX; UT; n Mexico
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Discussion | Varieties 3 (3 in the flora). (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.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 4. | FNA vol. 4, p. 364. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Saccariae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae | ||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||
Synonyms | A. truncata var. saccaria, Obione saccaria | Obione elegans | ||||||||||||
Name authority | S. Watson: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 9: 112. (1874) | (Moquin-Tandon) D. Dietrich: Syn. Pl. 5: 537. (1852) | ||||||||||||
Web links |