CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY. 717 



This grows in gravelly, dry patches in meadows, at 

 9500 feet altitude. 



Atriplex graciliflora. 



No. 5697. July 30, 1894, Blue Valley, near Henry 

 Mts., Utah, 4000° alt., in clay. 



No. S6^6e. July 20, 1894, Cainville, Utah, 4500° alt., 

 in clay. 



Annual, racemosely branched throughout and these 

 branches again branched, forming a large tuft 1-2° in 

 diameter, plants about 1° high, inner stems erect and 

 outer ones ascending or spreading, sparingly mealy 

 throughout, the younger parts more so, stems round; 

 leaves all cordate -ovate, 10" long or less, on a petiole i" 

 long, entire, fleshy when fresh and rather thick even 

 when dry; pistillate flowers few, scattered singly among 

 the upper leaves; staminate flowers in a slender, dichoto- 

 mous, bractless panicle, yellowish, in heads of 5 or more at 

 the ends of short pedicel-like branchlets 1-2" long, the main 

 branches of the panicle 2-4' long; flowers minute; fruit 

 on a stalk 3" long, bracts united except at the top and 

 produced down the stalk to within J" of the base in a 

 broad wing, also extended on all sides of the fruit into a 

 green wing which is barely sinuous above, this wing is 2" 

 wide on the sides and i" wide at the apex of the fruit, 

 fruit 5-8" wide, orbicular to reniform, not warty nor ap- 

 pendaged, the body of the fruit is ovate to elliptical, i" 

 wide and 2" long, closely invested by the bracts which 

 are separate only at the apex. This remarkable plant 

 must rank near to the shrubby A. canescens in the fruit 

 character, though so unlike it in all other respects. 



This grows in alkaline soil on the flats bordering the 

 Fremont River, where the soil is a very compact clay 

 during the growing season. 



