CHENOPODIACEAE (GOOSEFOOT FAMILY) 167 



calyx mostly 3-4-parted: fruiting bracts about 3 mm. long, oblong-obovate, 

 united up to the herbaceous truncately 3-toothed summit, the sides rarely 

 subtuberculate. Wyoming to Oregon. 



8. Atriplex argentea Nutt. Gen. 1: 198. 1818. Grayish-scurfy or silvery- 

 glabrate; starved and young plants often nearly simple and erect and only 

 1-2 dm. high; well-nourished ones intricately and divaricately branched, 

 subspherical masses 3-8 dm. in diameter: leaves deltoid or triangular-ovate 

 or sub rhombic, often subhastate, 2-5 cm. long: fruiting bracts short-pediceled, 

 united up to the dilated free margin which extends nearly to the base; the 

 free margin variously toothed or acutely lobed; the sides irregularly appen- 

 daged with herbaceous-tipped teeth or lamellae. (A. volutans A. Nels. Bull. 

 Torr. Bot. Club 25: 203. 1898.) From the Missouri River west to Oregon 

 and California. 



9. Atriplex philonitra A. Nels. Bot. Gaz. 34: 358. 1902. Annual, silvery- 

 white, with a dense scurfiness, freely branched throughout, widely spreading 

 and forming low tangled masses, 2^6 dm. high: leaves in young plants from 

 broadly ovate to orbicular, 3-nerved, 1-3 cm. long, on petioles mostly ex- 

 ceeding the leaves; in older plants very numerous, rhombic-ovate or sub- 

 cordate, sessile, on the branches becoming acute, gradually smaller and bract- 

 like: monoecious, androgynous, and also with unisexual clusters, floriferous 

 and leafy-bracted throughout, the crowded clusters at the closely approx- 

 imated nodes of the spike-like branches: calyx small, only the tips of the 

 sepals free: anthers large: fruiting bracts suborbicular, about 5 mm. broad, 

 barely united above by the irregularly toothed narrow margins, the backs 

 appendaged by short thick flat processes. Saline plains; Colorado, Wyoming, 

 and westward. 



10. Atriplex confertifolia (Torr.) Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 9: 119. ls74. 

 Densely appressed-scurfy diffusely branched shrub, somewhat spinescent, 

 3-12 dm. high: leaves ovate to obovate, 5-20 mm. long, usually obtuse at 

 apex and with cuneate base: flower-clusters small, axillary: bracts sessile, 

 united at the cuneate base around the seed and broadly margined above: 

 seed 2 mm. broad, filling the cavity. Alkaline plains and valleys through- 

 out the Rocky Mountain States. 



11. Atriplex canescens (Pursh) James, Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 9: 120. 

 1874. A rather rigid freely branched shrub, 4-10 dm. high: leaves ob lanceo- 

 late to narrowly oblong, entire, 2-5 cm. long: flowers mostly dioecious, in naked 

 panicled spikes: calyx 5-cleft: bracts at first ovate, becoming indurated, ad- 

 herent below to the pedicel of the ovary, bifid at apex and with 4 distinct 

 broadly dilated but variable wings. [A. occidentalis (Torr.) Diet. Syn. 5: 537; 

 A. odontophora Rydb. Bull. Torr. Bot. Club 31: 404. 1904.] Clay and marl 

 cliffs and banks; Dakota to Lower California. 



12. Atriplex aptera A. N<1*. Bot. Gaz. 34: 356. 1902. Perennial, from a 

 woody base, the annual stems tufted, decumbent at base or even depressed, 

 more or less branched, 1-3 dm. high: leaves narrowly oblong, 2-A cm. long, 

 5-8 mm. broad, mostly obtuse, cuneately narrowed to a subsessile base : fruiting 

 spikes paniculate, crowded, bracteate; the bracts linear-lanceolate, gradually 

 reduced upward or wanting: dioecious, the fruiting bracts united, scarcely 

 stipitate, somewhat indurated, densely-scurfy, appendaged with 3-4 more or 

 less vertical rows of short vertically flattened processes, some of them often ex- 

 panded but scarcely wing-like. Alkali flats; southern Wyoming. 



13. Atriplex cuneata A. Nels. Bot. Gaz. 34: 357. 1902. Perennial, with 

 woody base, 2-several dm. high, branched from the base, the branches 

 decumbent: leaves numerous, on the erect branches of the current year, 

 1-4 cm. long, entire, thick or semifleshy, narrowly to broadly elliptic, obtuse 

 at apex, cuneately tapering into a short petiole: flowers dioecious; the stami- 

 nate densely clustered in the upper leaf -axils and in terminal spikes; the 

 pistillate axillary, 1 or more in each cluster: fruiting bracts united except at 

 the tip, thickened and forming an ovate or subglobose fruit, rather thickly 

 covered with irregular rigid flattened processes. Southwestern Colorado, 

 southward and westward. 



