Belgian orach

Herbs, procumbent, many branched, alternate except basally, 0.06-3 dm. Stems reddish or yellowish, smooth or subangular. Leaves with blade ovate to lance-ovate or lanceolate to oblong, 15-45 mm, large basal lobes, obtuse, cuneate to a short petiole, margin sinuate-dentate, scurfy on both sides. Flowers in glomerules in distal leaf axils, axillary or in short terminal spikes. Fruiting bracteoles whitish green, sessile or subsessile, broadly rhombic, (4-)6-7(-8) mm, thickened at base, becoming scaly in age, cartilaginous in basal ¹/2, lateral angles strongly produced and with margin mostly entire, faces smooth or irregular, pointed, or flattened and winglike tubercles in basal ¹/2. Seeds monomorphic, light brown, 3.5-4 mm wide; radicle inferior. 2n = 18.

Flowering summer-fall. Sand, cobble on more or less protected beaches, on Zostera and Fucus wrack; 0-50 m; introduced; N.B., N.S., P.E.I., Que.; Europe.

Atriplex laciniata is evidently rare in North America.