■ laie Castle VaUeu clover' saltbush showing heavilij zuberoled utricles. 



Distribution and habitat: Atriplex cuneata occurs in highly alkaline soils in 

 eastern Utah, southwestern Colorado, and northern New Mexico. In these areas, the 

 species is often the dominant plant (fig. 23) or is codominant with A. confevtifolia 

 and A. covTuga.ta (fig. 20) . 



Use: Castle Valley clover saltbush remains green and succulent throughout the 

 winter and is highly palatable to all grazing animals. It is thus an important forage 

 shrub in the highly alkaline areas v\'here it occurs. 



This shrub shows promise for use in artificial restoration of certain game winter 

 ranges with highly saline-alkaline soil (McArthur and others 1974) . 



Atriplex gardneri (Gardner saltbush) 



Gardner saltbush is a low subshrub. The lower one-fourth to three-fourths of the 

 plant is slightly woody and the rest is herbaceous (fig. 24) . Its habit varies from 

 decumbent creeping forms to rounded forms 5 to 5 times broader than they are high. 

 The spineless decumbent branches usually produce adventitious roots where they contact 

 the soil. These plants also root sprout vigorously (Nord and others 1969). Annual 

 flowering stems arise from the woody portion of the plant. 



The lightly scurfy leaves are evergreen, spatulate to oblanceolate to obovate, 

 15 to 55 mm long, and 5 to 12 mm wide (Hanson 1962). 



The majority of plants of this species are dioecious. The broun staminate flowers 

 are borne in glomerules 3 to 5 mm wide on nearly naked one-branched terminal panicles 

 (fig. 25). The pistillate flowers are borne on leafy spikes (fig. 26). Hanson (1962) 

 observed that about 5 percent of the plants he inspected were monoecious. 



18 



