Atriplex serenana |
Atriplex gardneri |
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bracteate orach, bractscale, saltscale, stinking orach |
Gardner's orache, Gardner's sagebrush, Gardner's saltbrush, Gardner's saltbush, Nuttall's saltbush |
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Habit | Herbs, annual, erect or sprawling, usually branched often forming tangled mats to 10 × (3–)5–20 dm, ascending branches sparsely scurfy. | Shrubs or subshrubs, dioecious or monoecious, 1–10 dm, unarmed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stems | prostrate to ascending, or less commonly erect. |
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Leaves | many, subsessile or very short petiolate; blade subconcolorous, lanceolate to oblong, elliptic, or oval, (8–)10–30(–40) × 3–12(–15) mm, margin sharply dentate to entire. |
± 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 glomerules in terminal spikes or panicles 3–20 cm, or reduced to solitary, rounded, terminal glomerule. |
yellow or brown, in numerous clusters 2–4 mm wide, in spikes or panicles 2–30 cm. |
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Pistillate flower(s) | in small clusters, axillary. |
in spikes or panicles to 30 cm. |
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Seeds | brown, 1–1.3(–1.5) mm. |
tan or brown, 1.5–2.5 mm wide. |
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Fruiting | bracteoles sessile or subsessile (stipe to 1 mm), cuneate-orbicular to obovate, somewhat compressed, 2.1–3.5 × (1.7–)2–3.7 mm, united 1/2 of length, margin sharply and often slenderly toothed beyond middle, faces often rather strongly veined, smooth or with 1 or more slender or flattened appendages. |
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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2n | = 18. |
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Atriplex serenana |
Atriplex gardneri |
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Distribution |
CA; NV; nw Mexico
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AZ; CA; CO; ID; MT; ND; NE; NM; NV; OR; SD; UT; WA; WY; AB; MB; SK; Mexico
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Discussion | Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). (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. 361. | FNA vol. 4. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Obione > sect. Obione > subsect. Arenariae | Chenopodiaceae > Atriplex > subg. Pterochiton | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Synonyms | Obione gardneri, A. nuttallii subsp. gardneri, A. nuttallii var. gardneri | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | A. Nelson ex Abrams: Fl. Los Angeles, 128. (1904) | (Moquin-Tandon) D. Dietrich: Syn. Pl. 5: 537. (1852) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Web links |
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