Depressed orach

Atriplex depressa Jepson, Pittonia 2: 304. 1892

Stems prostrate to decumbent, white, to 2 dm, usually brittle, glabrous to scaly, grayish scurfy; branches terete. Leaves sometimes opposite, proximalmost usually sessile; blade ovate to cordate, 3-7 mm, margin entire, apex acute, usually densely white scaly. Flowers in axils of opposite, bracteate leaves, pistillate in clusters of 4, these and subtending leaves crowded on branchlets, internodes at anthesis 2 mm. Staminate flowers in small, yellow, axillary glomerules, calyx 4-lobed. Fruiting bracteoles deciduous, ovate (ovate-hastate) or rhombic, 2-3.5 mm, united to near summit, entire or obscurely denticulate, faces tuberculate, mostly white scurfy. Seeds reddish brown, 1-1.5 mm.

Flowering late summer-fall. Alkaline grasslands, often on clay soils; of conservation concern; 0-200(-300) m; Calif.

Atriplex parishii var. depressa occurs with Distichlis spicata, Frankenia salina, Centromadia pungens, Spergularia macrotheca, and Astragalus tener. This variety was cited in W. L. Jepson (1909-1943, vol. 1) and in L. Abrams and R. S. Ferris (1923-1960, vol. 2) as a synonym of Atriplex parishii but treated in the modern Jepson Manual as a distinct species, where it was separated in the key from A. parishii by having stems merely glabrous to densely scaly near the tips, versus woolly near the tips in A. parishii. The vestiture appears felty, with individual trichomes not usually evident.