Leaves variable in shape, a mix of rhomboidal (diamond shaped), ovate (egg shaped, wider toward base), deltoid (triangular, with base wide and flat and apex at tip), or hastate (arrowhead-shaped). Leaves scurfy (fine-scaly), greenish-grey or silver, margins entire (smooth) or slightly sinuous (wavy), 0.7-5 cm long, thin like paper. Sessile (clasping the stem directly) or on a very short petiole (leaf stalk). Stems erect and spreading, can be scurfy and grey when young, may become glabrous (smooth-surfaced) with age. Mostly dioecious (sexes on separate plants), though some are monoecious (containing separate flowers of both genders). Pistillate (female) flowers in profuse terminal panicles (compound-branched flower clusters). Pistillate flowers consist of nothing more than a round or oval ovary with 1 chamber with 1-3 styles above and 2 leaf-like round or ovatebracts ~3-4 mm long below (no sepals, no petals, no pedicels). Staminate (male) flowers form a spike or a spherical cluster with a calyx (fused sepals at base of flower) having 3-5 lobes and 3-5 stamens. Flowers July through October. Fruit is a utricle (thin, bladder-like bag containing a single seed). Seed is flattish, brown, ~1.5 mm long. Forms a dense shrub 0.75-3 m tall, usually wider than it is tall, sometimes much wider, in salty or alkaline environments, such as beaches and coastal salt marshes and inland playas. It is able to extract salt from water and excrete it through the leaves, giving them a salty taste (be absolutely certain of a species' identity before tasting it!). Can be found up to 1,500 m in elevation along the South Coast from Santa Barbara to San Clemente, the inland valleys and plains of Southern California, the western Transverse Ranges, the Salinas Valley, the Great Central Valley, the southern Sierra and their foothills, the Mojave, and Colorado/Sonoran, and Great Basin deserts and the mountains within them. Besides California, this species is found east through Nevada to southwest Utah and in northern Mexico.
Atriplex lentiformis aka Obione lentiformis (Amaranthaceae or Chenopodiaceae): big saltbush or quail bush
The development of this key was partially funded through the Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Program (Award #0703798) and through a course of re-assigned time provided by the CSULB Scholarly and Creative Activities Committee. Thanks also to the students in sections of biogeography, introductory physical geography, GDEP, and LSAMP for "test-driving" various editions of this key.