Flora of Oregon

Herbs,

subshrubs, or

shrubs annual or perennial, monoecious or dioecious, glabrous or farinose with short, inflated hairs.

Stems erect to prostrate or spreading, woody or herbaceous, usually branched, branches sometimes forming spine-like appendages in shrubs.

Leaves alternate, opposite below, sometimes hastate, margins entire or toothed or lobed, flat; sessile or petiolate.

Inflorescences axillary or terminal clusters of flowers, sometimes forming panicles or spikes.

Flowers unisexual, sometimes intermixed in monoecious plants, staminate and pistillate flowers distinct; perianths not scarious.

Staminate flowers usually with 5-parted perianths, stamens (3)5; bracteoles absent.

Pistillate flowers usually without perianth and enclosed by 2 fruiting, glabrous to short–pubescent bracteoles (but with deeply lobed, 5-parted perianths in A. hortensis), sometimes dimorphic.

Fruits with membranous, free pericarp.

Seeds usually vertical, sometimes horizontal, of 1 kind or sometimes dimorphic, brown or black, shiny.

Worldwide. ~250 species; 14 species treated in Flora.

The common name, saltbush, refers to the fact that many species of Atriplex are tolerant of salty soils and retain salt in their leaves. Desert-holly (A. hymenelytra) is known only from one collection, from southern Harney County, as a short-lived waif.

Flora of North America

as described under Atriplex

Herbs or shrubs, annual or perennial, monoecious or dioecious, often with bladderlike hairs that collapse to form silvery or scurfy (mealy) vesture, less often with elongate trichomes. Leaves persistent or tardily deciduous, alternate, partially opposite, or opposite, sessile or petiolate; blade entire, serrate, or lobed, with venation either of Kranz-type or normal dicotyledonous type, axillary buds inconspicuous or lacking. Inflorescences axillary or terminal; flowers borne in axillary clusters or glomerules, or in terminal spikes or spicate panicles. Staminate flowers with 3-5-parted calyx, ebracteate; stamens 3-5. Pistillate flowers lacking perianth, pistil naked, or in few species with (1-)3-5-lobed perianth, commonly enclosed within pair of foliaceous bracteoles; stigmas 2. Fruiting bracteoles enlarged in fruit, of various shapes and variously connate or not, thickened, and appendaged; pericarp free, tightly enclosed in the fruiting bracteoles. Seeds flattened, mainly vertical; radicle inferior, lateral, or superior. x = 9.Many species of Atriplex are halophytic, others occupy soils low in dissolved particulates.Prior to the 1900s, the genus Suckleya was treated within Atriplex, but its obcompressed fruiting bracteoles are quite unlike anything in Atriplex, and the plants were recognized as a distinct genus.