Annuals, Perennials, and Shrubs. Flowers without showy petals, often enclosed in green leaf-like bracts, and borne in dense spikes or catkins. Fruit a capsule containing a single seed. Alternate leaves often scurfy/canescent - having a sandy or powdery texture.
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Quailbush |
Atriplex lentiformis |
Four-winged Saltbush |
Atriplex canescens |
Large shrub of soil that is partially damp and saline/alkaline. Abundant along major river courses and in areas near irrigation ditches. Large panicles of flatted seeds on branch ends. Detailed Description |
Large shrub of alkaline soils ranging to slightly drier habitats than Quailbush. Seeds have four, papery wings around the capsule. Leaves linear, silvery canescent. Detailed Description |
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Wheel-scale Saltbush |
Atriplex elegans |
Allscale Salt Bush |
Atriplex polycarpa |
Summer to autumn annual, sometimes perennial. Gray scurfy leaves. Fruit capsules flattened and with a wheel of fleshy fingers forming a corona. Frequent near agricultural settings and as a weed in urban areas of the Sonoran Desert. Detailed Description |
Gray-green shrub of alkaline soils. Small, oblong leaves. Abundant scaled fruit at branch tips. Detailed Description |
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Desert Seepweed |
Suaeda moquinii |
Lamb's Quarters |
Chenopodium album |
Shrubby plant with fleshy leaves found in saline/damp soil as along rivers in the Sonoran Desert. Detailed Description |
Leafy weed of cool seasons found growing usu. near agric. fields. Leaves whitish on top surface. Leaves coarsely toothed; flowers green & without petals. Detailed Description |
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Tumbleweed / Russian Thistle |
Salsola tragus |
Mealy Goosefoot |
Chenopodium incanum |
Robust summer to autumn annual growing mostly as a weed near agriculture, in fallow fields, but also along riparian zones. Forming tumbleweeds with stems that are wiry and beset with spinescent leaves. Detailed Description |
Late spring to summer annual fairly common in riparian habitats and better-watered washes. Diamond-shaped leaves mealy-white beneath. Detailed Description |
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Iodine Bush |
Allenrolfea occidentalis |
Nuttall's Povertyweed |
Monolepis nuttalliana |
Woody shrub of saline/alkaline soils with fleshy, jointed stems. Leaves scale-like. Flowers very small without petals. Detailed Description |
Usually a low-growing plant with fleshy leaves and stems. Green flowers clustered in axils of leaves. Found in moist, saline soil. Detailed Description |
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