Wheelscale Saltbush
Atriplex elegans
Photographed along waste ground adjacent to an irrigation canal in Phoenix, Arizona, USA in June 2007. A full resolution version of this photo is hosted at Wikimedia where there are additional images of Salt Bush species.
RANGE: Abundant
on vacant city lots, fallow farm fields and occasionally in natural riparian
habitats in the Sonoran Desert. Ranges from Texas to California in the USA.
Generally on damp or saline soils.
LEAVES: Alternate, elliptic leaves are silvery-scurfy and the margins are
wavy toothed.
SEEDS: Small seeds inside a flattened wheel or ring with a serrate
margin.
PERENNIAL: A perennial herb with a slightly woody crown, mostly less than
½ meter tall and forming a clump a meter or so in diameter with
many stems. Grows most vigorously from mid spring through late summer and fall.
FLOWERS: Greenish flowers are not showy and may produce some allergenic
wind-blown pollen.
UNARMED.