Earlimart orach

Atriplex erecticaulis Stutz, G. L. Chu & S. C. Sanderson, Madroño 44: 89, figs. 1, 2(right). 1997

Stems highly branched from base, 3-5(-8) dm; branches mainly steeply ascending. Leaves: blade deltoid-ovate to ovate-lanceolate or subcordate, 5-15 × 5-12 mm, base rounded to cordate-clasping, typically entire, or sparingly toothed below middle. Anthers yellow. Fruiting bracteoles deltoid-rhombic to flabellate, 3-3.5 × 3-4 mm, central tooth subequal to lateral, scarcely if at all tuberculate. 2n = 54.

Flowering summer-early fall. Roadsides, fields, in alkaline grasslands; of conservation concern; 0-100 m; Calif.

Atriplex cordulata var. erecticaulis occurs with Distichlis spicata, Centromadia pungens, Frankenia salina, Cressa truxillensis, Heliotropium curassavicum, and other annual species. Stutz, Chu, and Sanderson indicated this taxon’s relationship to var. cordulata from which it differs in the more bushy habit resulting from profuse branching, later flowering time (August and September, not June and July), yellow anthers (not purple or red, which is possibly only a function of age), deltoid-rhombic to flabellate fruiting bracteoles (not broadly deltoid-ovate), central tooth and lateral of same size (not with larger central tooth), and hexaploid (not tetraploid) chromosome condition. Specimens known previous to the segregation by Stutz et al. were included within A. cordulata, and despite the apparently different chromosome number and morphologic differences, the taxon is nevertheless closely similar morphologically to the only slightly, if at all, disjunct A. cordulata, hence the treatment at infraspecific level herein.