Pacific orach

Obione microcarpa Bentham, Bot. Voy. Sulphur, 48. 1844, not Atriplex microcarpa Waldstein & Kitaibel 1812; Atriplex ramosissima Nuttall ex Moquin-Tandon

Herbs, annual, prostrate, sometimes tinged red, 1-6 dm, forming tangled masses 3-10 dm diam., lightly scurfy when young. Leaves numerous, sessile or proximal short petiolate; blade greenish adaxially, paler abaxially, oblanceolate to spatulate-elliptic or oval, (3-)5-18 × 1-8 mm, margin entire, more scurfy abaxially. Staminate flowers in glomerules largely in distal bractless axils, thus short spicate; calyx 5-cleft. Pistillate flowers in proximal axils. Fruiting bracteoles subsessile or stipe to 0.3 mm, suborbiculate to obovate, 1-1.5(-2) × 1.1-1.8 mm, united to middle, margin minutely 3-5-toothed at apex, otherwise entire, apex green, faces smooth or rarely tuberculate. Seeds light brown, 0.8-1 mm.

Flowering early spring-fall. Mainly on sea bluffs; 0-100 m; Calif.; Mexico (Baja California).

The name Atriplex ramosissima was published by Moquin-Tandon as a synonym, based on a name on a specimen in Nuttall’s herbarium.