Common Orache (Plants of Jamaica Bay Marsh)

Common Orache

Atriplex patula

Summary ²

Atriplex patula L. (Spear Saltbush; Common Orache; Spear Orach; Spreading Orach) is a ruderal, circumboreal species of annual herbaceous plants in the genus Atriplex naturalized in many temperate regions.

Description ³

Herbs, monoecious or subdioe-cious, (1.5-)3-9(-15) dm. Stems mostly erect and branched, branches green, obtusely angled or striate, glabrate. Leaves alternate except the proximalmost, petiolate; blade green on both sides, rhombic-lanceolate to lanceolate, oblong, or narrowly lance-oblong or hastate-ovate, 25-120 × 3-40(-75) mm, entire or toothed, proximal ones broadly cuneate or sometimes hastate subbasally with obliquely antrorse basal lobes, distal cauline leaves lanceolate and entire. Flowers compact or interrupted spiciform or paniculiform clusters. Staminate flowers mostly 5-merous. Fruiting bracteoles green becoming black, rhombic to rhombic-triangular, or ovate-rhombic, compressed, ± uniformly sized, 2-7(-20) mm, base mostly hastate, acute, margin united almost to middle, entire or sparingly toothed, surfaces tuberculate. Seeds dimorphic: brown, 2.5-3(-3.5) mm wide, or black, 1-2 mm wide; radicle of brown seeds subbasal to median, antrorse. 2n = 36.