Spreading Atriplex
Scientific Name: Atriplex patula L.
Other Names: arroche étalée, Orache, Spreading orache, arroche des champs
Family: Goosefoot Family (Chenopodoiaceae)
General Description: Annual, reproducing only by seed.
Habitat: Spreading atriplex is a native plant in both saline and non-saline moist soils throughout Ontario but frequently occurs as a weed in gardens, waste areas, and row crops in the southern part of the province.
Seedlings
Stems
-
Prostrate or nearly erect
- Branching pattern opposite near the base and alternate farther from the base
Leaves
- Linear to narrowly lance-shaped and without teeth or lobes or somewhat broader and with 1 or 2 lateral lobes and sometimes with a few teeth along the margins above the lobes
- Green
- Somewhat fleshy
- Mostly 1- 5 cm (2/5- 2 in.) long
Flowers
- Very small
- Unisexual
- Male flowers:
- With only stamens and sepals
- No pistil or petals
- With only stamens and sepals
- Female flowers:
- With only a single pistil
- Without stamens, petals or sepals
- Enclosed between 2 green, triangular to broadly diamond-shaped bracts about 1- 4 mm (1/25- 1/6 in.) long and wide
- 2 to 5 of these usually clustered together in the axils of smaller leaves along nearly all the stems and branches
- With only a single pistil
- Both sexes on one plant
- Flowers from July to September
Often Confused With
Lamb’s-Quarters (Spreading atriplex is distinguished from Lamb’s-quarters by its several pairs of opposite leaves and branches, and its triangular to diamond-shaped bracts enclosing each flower.)