Atriplex semibaccata |
Atriplex fruticulosa |
|
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Australian saltbush, berry saltbush, creeping saltbush |
ball saltbush, ballscale, little oak orach |
|
Habit | Herbs or subshrubs, perennial, decumbent-prostrate, unarmed, mainly 0.5–8 dm and spreading to 15+ dm wide, unarmed, white scurfy when young; branches not angled. | Herbs, perennial, decumbent-spreading to erect, fruticose at base, 0.5–3(–5) dm. |
Stems | simple or much branched, scurfy, finally glabrate. |
|
Leaves | many, alternate, subsessile or short petiolate; blade 1-veined, spatulate or obovate to oblong or elliptic, mainly 5–30(–40) × 2–9(–12) mm, base attenuate, margin remotely dentate to subentire, apex obtuse. |
numerous, proximal ones mostly short petiolate, distal ones sessile; blade narrowly lanceolate to elliptic, 5–15(–20) × 2–4 mm, mostly acute at both ends, margin entire, densely gray scurfy. |
Staminate flowers | in small, terminal, leaf-bracteate glomerules 1.5 mm wide. |
in short, dense, interrupted terminal spikes. |
Pistillate flowers | solitary or in few-flowered clusters in almost all but distalmost leaves. |
in small, axillary clusters. |
Seeds | dimorphic: black, 1.5–1.7 mm, or brown, 2 mm. |
dark brown, 1.4–1.7 mm. |
Fruiting | bracteoles red-fleshy at maturity, sessile or short stipitate, strongly veined, rhombic, convex, 3–6.6 × 2.8–4.5 mm, united at base, margin toothed, apex obtuse to acute. |
bracteoles sessile or subsessile, broadly obovate to suborbicular in profile, slightly if at all compressed, 3–5 mm and almost as wide, united to middle, narrowly margined and acutely dentate beyond middle, sides tooth-crested or muricate, ± indurate. |
2n | = 18. |
|
Atriplex semibaccata |
Atriplex fruticulosa |
|
Phenology | Flowering spring–early winter. | Flowering summer–fall. |
Habitat | Saline waste places, along roads and sidewalks, in marshes, in various plant communities | Clay or alkaline soils, open site, shrublands |
Elevation | 10-1000 m (0-3300 ft) | 700+ m (2300+ ft) |
Distribution |
AZ; CA; DC; NM; NV; TX; UT; WA; Australia [Introduced in North America]
|
CA
|
Discussion | The red-fleshy fruiting bracteoles are diagnostic of this introduced perennial, which is multi-stemmed from an often buried woody caudex. The Australian species Atriplex muelleri Bentham is somewhat similar. It has been has reported, but not verified, in the North American flora. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
H. M. Hall and F. E. Clements (1923) indicated a close relationship between Atriplex fruticulosa and A. coulteri. Both species are described as being perennial by D. Taylor and D. H. Wilken (1993), wherein A. coulteri was inadvertently left out of the key. Perhaps the size of the fruiting bracteoles, 3–5 mm in A. fruticulosa and 2–3 mm in A. coulteri, is diagnostic. Hall and Clements pointed to differences in habit of the plant, which vary from the erect woody forms represented by the type collection (and known only from them?) to the evidently more common phase in which the leafy stems are spreading or prostrate, and herbaceous throughout except at the very base, where they are attached to a more or less woody root crown. In some fruiting bracteoles the faces are bicristate as in the thornberi phase of Atriplex elegans, in which the teeth radiate around much of the bracteole margin, not mainly from above the middle as in the present species. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 343. | FNA vol. 4, p. 363. |
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Atriplex > sect. Semibaccata | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | A. flagellaris | |
Name authority | R. Brown: Prodr., 406. (1810) | Jepson: Pittonia 2: 306. (1892) |
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