A. MATAMORENSIS — A. BARCLAYANA. 313 



SYNONYM. 



1. Atriplex oppositifolia Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. 9:118, 1874. The original name for A. matamor- 

 ensis, but antedated by A. oppositifolia Vilmorin, a European species which apparently still has taxonomic 

 standing. 



RELATIONSHIPS. 



The relationships of A. matamorensis have been considered under A. decumbens. In 

 addition to what is there said, attention should be called to the close similarity between 

 the fruiting bracts of matamorensis and elegans, these organs being strongly compressed, 

 nearly orbicular, and evenly dentate in both. The habit and foliage of the present species 

 is more like that of A. julacea than any other. It is doubtful, however, if either of these 

 similarities indicate anything more than a parallel development in species widely sepa- 

 rated phylogenetically. As contrasted with decumbens, matamorensis is a more woody 

 plant with greatly reduced foliage and with more nearly orbicular, closely dentate fruiting 

 bracts. 



ECOLOGY AND USES. 



Nothing is known of the ecology and uses of this Mexican species. 



35. ATRIPLEX BARCLAYANA (Bentham) Dietrich, Syn. PI. 5:537, 1852. Plate 49. 



Erect or prostrate perennial shrub or herb, usually woody at least toward the base, 

 2 to 15 dm. high; branches stout, terete or rarely somewhat angled, sometimes striate 

 after the fall of the scurf, densely white-furfuraceous or glabrate and reddish, the bark 

 fissured on old plants ; leaves alternate, except perhaps the lower, short-petioled or nearly 

 sessile, obovate or broadly elUptic, tapering to the base, obtuse or mucronate at apex, 1 

 to 4 cm. long, 0.5 to 2 cm. wide, entire or undulate or dentate in one subspecies (lurida), 

 thick, white with a dense scurf (the leaves thinner, less scurfy, and greenish in some 

 specimens, particularly in minor variation 1) ; flowers dioecious, the staminate in glomer- 

 ules scattered along the branches of a short spreading terminal panicle, the pistillate in 

 small axillary glomerules of a narrow leafy-bracted terminal panicle, this 0.5 to 2 dm. long; 

 perianth 5-cleft in the staminate flowers, wanting in the pistillate; fruiting bracts sessile 

 or short-stalked, compressed and obovate or suborbicular to thickened and globoid, nar- 

 rowed at base, united at least halfway up, usually only the margins distinct, the tip obtuse 

 and dentate or ovate-acute or subulate, the whole bract 2 to 4 mm. long (occasional pre- 

 cocious bracts up to 7 mm. long), 2 to 5 or 8 mm. wide, with a few small teeth near 

 the apex or dentate also down the margins, the sides either tuberculate or cristate or 

 unappendaged, often irregularly thickened; seed about 1 to 1.5 mm. long, brown; radicle 

 superior. (Obione barclayana Bentham, Botany Voyage Sulph. 48, 1844.) 



Northwestern Mexico, from the coast of Sinaloa and Sonora across Lower California. 



SUBSPECIES. 



Eight species have been described from what is here included under A . barclayana. One 

 is based upon leaf characters, the others upon the nature of the bracts and supported in 

 some cases by quite unimportant features of habit or of the scurf. After assembling all 

 of the available material, including a very fine series of specimens recently collected by 

 Mr. I. M. Johnston on the California Academy of Sciences Expedition to the Gulf of 

 California, it seems doubtful if any of these, with possibly the exception of A. lurida, 

 can be advantageously retained even as subspecies. Much individual variation is appar- 

 ent and single plants very frequently have fruiting bracts of two or more of the "species." 

 However, the differences between the extremes are so striking that it seems desirable to 

 give some kind of taxonomic recognition to the more frequently recurring forms. For 

 this reason all of the variations have been assembled into the following 6 subspecies. 



