Checklist » Amaranthaceae » Atriplex hortensis
Last updated 10/14/2023 by David Giblin.
Atriplex hortensis L.[FNA4, HC, HC2]
garden orache, French spinach

Publication: Sp. Pl. 2: 1053. 1753.

Origin: Introduced from Asia

selected vouchers: WTU

Notes: FNA4: "Atriplex hortensis has been widely grown as a potherb, has escaped from cultivation, and is now established especially in moist ruderal sites. It is easily distinguished by its rounded, samaralike, entire, and smooth fruiting bracteoles, and the presence of two kinds of pistillate flowers, the one enclosed by bracteoles and lacking sepals, the other without bracteoles but subtended by sepals.

Atriplex nitens (see list of excluded taxa) is distinguished from A. hortensis in Flora Europea (P. Aellen 1964b) by having leaf blades densely white scurfy beneath, the distal surface lustrous, as opposed to green and dull for A. hortensis. Occasional specimens, treated here as A. hortensis, have leaves somewhat scurfy."

References: (none)

Synonyms & Misapplied Names:
Atriplex nitens Schkuhr