334 GENUS ATRIPLEX. 



white with a dense, smooth, persistent scurf, l-nerved from the base; flowers dioecious, 

 in short dense leafy panicles and short axillary spikes, or the pistillate inflorescence 

 sometimes more open and less leafy ; perianth 5-parted in the staminate flowers, wanting 

 in the pistillate; fruiting bracts borne on a short fusiform or turbinate stalk, strongly 

 compressed, except for the small convex body, distinct or nearly so, orbicular or round- 

 reniform, 6 to 12 mm. long and about as broad, the margins entire, the faces smooth 

 but reticulate-veiny; seed about 2 mm. long, brown; radicle superior. {Obione hymen- 

 elytra Torrey, Pacif. R. Rep. 4:129, plate 20, 1857.) 



Alkaline deserts of southeastern California, southern Nevada, and southwestern 

 Utah, south across western Arizona to Sonora and Lower California. Type locality, 

 hills and gravelly places on Williams River, Arizona. Collections: California: West 

 from Bennett Wells, Death Valley, Coville and Funston 195 (Gr, US); near Fremonts 

 Peak, Mojave Desert, Hall and Chandler 6855 (UC); near Barstow, Mojave Desert, 

 Rose 12060 (US); Borregos Springs, Carisso Creek, and Split Mountain, all on the 

 Colorado Desert, Brandegee (UC); Coachella, Colorado Desert, April, 1905, Greata 

 (UC); Signal Mountain, Colorado Desert, December 29, 1907, Abrams (Gr); west of 

 Logan, Clark County, Nevada,, Heller 10453 (DS, Gr, NY, US) ; southern Utah, Palmer, 

 1870, ace. Bot. King; gravelly mesa near Mellen, Arizona, February 25, 1910, Grinnell 

 (UC); Bill Williams Fork, Arizona, Bigelow (Gr); Mohawk Station, lower Gila River, 

 Arizona, Greene 1089 (Gr); Gila, Sonora, Thurber (Gr); Cucopa Mountains, Lower 

 California, MacDougal I4S (NY); Los Angeles Bay, Lower California, Johnston 344^ 

 (SF, UC). Additional localities in California and Nevada are listed by Coville (Contr. 

 U. S. Nat. Herb. 4:180, 1893). 



RELATIONSHIPS. 



This is one of the most distinct of the American species of Atriplex. It is unlike any 

 other in its roundish, deeply dentate leaves and in its large, orbicular, thin-winged 

 bracts. The development of a wing from the upper portion of the bract, the position of 

 the seed, and the short stipe-like base to the bracts, all suggest A. confertifolia, but the 

 body of the bract is not indurated as in that, and otherwise these two species are quite 

 unlike. 



ECOLOGY AND USES. 



Atriplex hymenelytra practically never forms a dominant community, but grows 

 sparsely or copiously in association with the dominants of dry rocky slopes about valleys 

 in which polycarpa or lentiformis is usually found. Its usual associates are Encelia, 

 Franseria, Larrea, Fouquiera, Opuntia, etc. The flowering period is earlier than that of 

 any other species, the staminate flowers opening from February to April. 



The plants are normal and symmetrical, and show no evidence of being browsed. 

 Their silvery, spiny leaves and symmetry make them in demand for decoration, and 

 carloads are shipped East, especially at Christmas time. 



43. ATRIPLEX LENTIFORMIS (Torrey) Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. 9:118, 1874. 

 Plates 54 and 55. Lenscale. 



Erect shrub, woody throughout, either rigidly or flexuously much branched, globoid 

 or dome-shaped in outline when well developed, 10 to 30 dm. high and with a spread 

 of 1 to 50 dm ; branches either terete or sharply angled, gray-scurfy at first, soon smooth 

 and pale, the bark rough and gray on old trunks; leaves numerous, deciduous in desert 

 forms and the branchlets then spiny, alternate, petioled or the upper ones sessile, deltoid 

 or rhombic to ovate or oblong (nearly orbicular in minor variation 4), truncate to cuneate 

 at base, obtuse and short-mucronate at apex, 1 to 5 cm. long, 0.5 to 5 cm. wide, entire or 

 subhastate, rather thin, gray or bluish with a fine, close permanent scurf, l-nerved from 

 the base; flowers dioecious or monoecious, both staminate and pistillate crowded along 



