342 GENUS ATRIPLEX. 



gray or whitish with a close permanent scurf. 1- or 3-nerved from the base; flowers dioe- 

 cious, the staminate glomerules in the upper axils, forming dense leafy-bracted panicles, 

 the pistillate 1 to several in each of the upper axils, thus forming small panicles; perianth of 

 staminate flowers 5-cleft (as far as known), wanting in the pistillate; fruiting bracts sessile 

 or very shortly stalked, compressed but thick and rigid, united to above the middle and 

 sometimes to the broad summit, forming a compressed-campanulate sac bordered above 

 by the thick margins, truncate-flabelliform when pressed, 3 to 4 mm. long, 3.5 to 4.5 mm. 

 broad, entire, the face smooth; seed 1 to 1.5 mm. long, brown or amber; radicle superior. 

 From the Mojave Desert, California, to western Nevada. Type locality, Lancaster, 

 Mojave Desert, California (according to Parish, Zoe 5:113, 1901). Collections, all in 

 Cahfornia except the last: Type collection, 1881, Parry 282 (Gr); near Lancaster, Bran- 

 degee (UC); near Rosamond and Dry Lake, Antelope Valley, Davy 2190, 2195, 2227, 

 2232,2946, 294? (UC); near Troy, Mojave Desert, Johnston 4092 (Pomona); Rab- 

 bit Springs, Mojave Desert, Parish 1350 in part (US); near Keeler, Inyo County, 

 Coville and Funston 843 (DS, Gr, NY, US); Resting Springs Valley, Inyo County, 

 CoviUe and Funston 274 (US); Beattie, Nevada, Heller 10421 (DS, Gr, NY, US). 

 Additional locahties recorded by Coville (Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 4:181, 1893) are 

 the following: Cahfornia: Rabbit Springs, Mojave Desert, Death Valley, west shore 

 of Owens Lake, north of Searles, between Lone Pine .and Big Pine; Nevada: Ash 

 Meadows, Oasis Valley, Grapevine Canon, Sarcobatus Flat. 



RELATIONSHIPS. 



This species is of the confertifolia group, but does not closely approach the others. It is 

 much more slender-twigged than either confertifolia or spinifera and is readily distin- 

 guished from either of these by the closely sessile subcordate leaves. The fruiting bracts 

 differ from those of related species in the absence of free, thin, terminal, wing-like margins, 

 the summit consisting instead of a truncate thick border around the orifice formed by the 

 united bracts. Although probably derived from A. confertifolia, it is not isolated from 

 this, for the two grow near each other at many places within the limited area of A. parryi. 

 ECOLOGY AND USES. 



Atriplex parryi is an intense halophyte of the desert area of eastern California and 

 southern Nevada, apparently with a tolerance close to that of lentiformis and polycarpa. 

 It is abundant or even dominant in alkaline flats, and also invades the edge of the desert 

 scrub about the margin, where it mingles with Larrea. It is not known to be of use. 



47. ATRIPLEX CANESCENS (Pursh) Nuttall, Gen. PI. 1:197, 1818. Plate 58. 



WiNGSCALE.' 



Erect shrub, woody throughout, loosely to densely branched and exceedingly variable 

 in outline, 2 to 25 dm. high; branches terete, stout, gray-scurfy, glabrate and then pale, 

 the old bark gray and splitting on the surface, after which it exfoliates; leaves numerous, 

 alternate, sessile or subsessile, linear to spatulate-oblong or broadly elliptic, narrowed 

 at the base, usually obtuse at apex (except in subspecies garretti), 1 to 5 cm. long, 0.1 to 

 1 cm. wide (up to 1.8 cm. wide in garretti), enine, thick, gray with a dense permanent scurf, 

 1-nerved; flowers dioecious (or rarely monoecious, according to Standley), the staminate 

 glomerules in dense spikes of long terminal panicles, these leafy below, the pistillate in 

 dense leafy-bracted spikes and panicles; perianth 4- or 5-cleft in staminate flowers, 

 wanting in the pistillate; fruiting bracts sessile or stalked, the body not compressed, firmly 

 united to the summit of the body, above which the free tips project as flat wings, the whole 

 bract 4 to 12 or rarely 20 mm. long, above as broad, the margins developed into a pair of 

 flat, broad wings, a second pair of wings developed also from the medial line of each 



' Atriplex canetcens is sometimes called "shadacale," a wholly inappropriate name for this species. The term shadscale 

 is here restricted to A. confertifolia, to which also it has been applied in the literature and the fruiting bracts of which it 

 aptly describes. 



