A. SPINIFERA A. PARRYI. 341 



gray or nearly white with a close permanent scurf, 1-nerved from the base; flowers 

 dioecious, the staminate not known, the pistillate soUtary or in small glomerules in the 

 upper leaf-axils; perianth wanting in the pistillate flowers; fruiting bracts closely sessile 

 and adjacent pairs often fused at base, the body globoid or slightly longer than broad 

 (4 to 6 mm. thick), the free margins developed above the body into orbicular or oblong 

 wings, the whole bract 7 to 15 mm. long, 3.5 to 10 mm. broad, entire or the wings irregu- 

 larly dentate, the faces either smooth or with a few cristate appendages; seed 2 to 2.8 

 mm. long, reddish-brown; radicle superior. 



California, from the westerly side of the San Joaquin Valley to the western part of the 

 Mojave Desert. Type locality, Maricopa Hills, Kern County, California. Collections, 

 all in California: 1.5 km. north of Volta, Merced County, Severin and Hall 11018 (UC); 

 western Fresno County, 5 km. south of South Dos Palos, Severin and Hall 11021, 11754 

 (UC); Mendota, western Fresno County, Severin and Hall 11761 (UC); 5 km. south of 

 Shafter, Kern County, Severin and Hall 11779 (UC); type collection. May 15, 1913, 

 Eastwood S269 (Or); Buena Vista Hills, Kern County, April 9, 1893, Eastwood (UC, 

 pocket) ; base of Fremonts Peak, Inyo County, Hall and Chandler 6866 (UC) ; Dry Lake, 

 near Rosamond, Antelope Valley, Hall 10581 (UC); Kramer, Mojave Desert, Brandegee 

 (UC); Daggett, Mojave Desert, Brandegee (UC). 



RELATIONSHIPS. 



Atriplex spinifera is a far-western development from A. confertifolia, which it resembles 

 in the spiny habit and in the general features of the inflorescence and fruiting bracts. 

 The branches are more nearly erect than in confertifolia and the plants therefore less 

 rounded and spreading. The hastate tendency evident in the summer foliage is not 

 known in the other species and the thick-bodied bracts, contracted just beneath the wing- 

 like free terminal margins, are distinctive. During the late summer the broader subhas- 

 tate leaves drop off, leaving only the small entire ones of the twigs, but the fruiting 

 bracts persist into the late autumn. The type specimens consist only of twigs and 

 bracts gathered in May, and do not show the larger, hastate leaves which may not have 

 been present on the plants at that period. The bracts, too, are undersized and look as 

 though they came from a plant flowering out of season. This accounts for certain dis- 

 crepancies between the original description and the one given above. 

 ECOLOGY AND USES. 



Atriplex spinifera attains its best development, both in size and abundance, on the 

 moderately alkaline plains of western San Joaquin Valley in California. It forms open 

 stands, often pure, but sometimes mixed with A. polycarpa, or in Antelope Valley with 

 the closely related confertifolia. It may also grow on low alkaline mounds, with the inter- 

 vening flats occupied by Gastridium, Trichostema, Eremocarpus, Frankenia, and Salsola. 

 It is a marked halophyte, apparently intermediate between polycarpa and confertifolia 

 in its tolerance of alkali. 



There is no evidence that this species has any economic value, though it may be occa- 

 sionally browsed by sheep. The beet leaf-hopper {Eutettix tenella) has been bred from 

 it, and Severin believes that it is an important winter food-plant of this insect. (See 

 further under A. bracteosa, p. 307.) 



46. ATRIPLEX PARRYI Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. 17:378, 1882. Plate 57. 

 Erect shrub, woody throughout, rigidly branched, spiny, of rounded outline, 2 to 4 

 dm. high; branches not angled, slender, erect or ascending, white-scurfy, glabrate and 

 then straw-colored, the old bark becoming dark and longitudinally broken ; leaves at first 

 crowded, deciduous from the twigs whfch are then transformed into spines, alternate, 

 sessile, orbicular-ovate or subreniform, cordate or subcordate at base, obtuse at apex 

 or those of the inflorescence acute, 0.5 to 1.2 cm. long, 0.7 to 1.5 cm. wide, entire, thin. 



