704 



THE GOOSEFOOT FAMILY. 



and autumn. The Ryde specimens are much nearer to the common 

 garden form than to the east European wild variety often distinguished 

 under the name of A. nitens. 



4. Common Orache. Atriplex patula, Linn. (Fig. 848.) 



%b& 



Fig. 848. 



A most variable plant in stature, in 

 the shape of the leaf, and in the fruiting 

 perianth. It is an annual, erect or pro- 

 strate, dark or pale green, or more or 

 less mealy-white, but never so thickly 

 frosted or scaly as the frosted O. Leaves 

 all stalked ; the lower ones usually has- 

 tate and sometimes opposite ; the upper 

 ones often narrow and entire, or coarsely 

 toothed. Flowers clustered in rather 

 slender spikes, forming narrow, leafy 

 terminal panicles ; the females mixed 

 with the males, or a few in separate 

 axillary clusters. Segments of the fruit- 

 ing perianth united to about the middle, 

 usually ovate or rhomboidal and pointed, 

 often toothed at the edge and warted or 

 muricate on the back, but very variable 

 in size and shape, often of two kinds, a 

 larger and a smaller, on the same plant. 



On the seacoasts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, extending to the 

 Arctic regions, besides being very common inland as a weed of culti- 

 vation. Abundant in Britain. FL the whole season except early spring. 

 The principal forms, which have been distinguished as species, although 

 they run very much one into another, are the following : — 



a. Hastate O. (A. patula, Eng. Bot. t. 936 ; A. deltoidea, Suppl. 

 t. 2860 ; A. rosea, Suppl. t. 2880 ; and A. Babingtoni, Brit. FL) Erect 

 or spreading. Lower leaves broadly triangular or hastate, often 

 coarsely and irregularly toothed. 



b. Upright 0. (A. erecta, Eng. Bot. t. 2223.) Stem erect. Leaves 

 lanceolate, the lower ones broader and hastate. 



c. Common O. (A. angustifolia, Eng. Bot. t. 1774.) Stem spreading 

 or decumbent. Leaves mostly lanceolate or the upper ones linear. 



d. Narrow O. (A. littoralis, Eng. Bot. t. 708.) Stems prostrate. 

 Leaves still narrower than in the last, often toothed. 



All these varieties have maritime forms, with thicker succulent leaves, 

 in some specimens very green and shining, in others more or less mealy- 

 white, especially the hastate variety. 



