ATRIPLEX ROSEA

Family and Genus:- See- AMARANTHACEAE/A. prostrata group

Common Name:- Rosy orache

Homotypic Synonyms:- Chenopodium roseum, Obione rosea, Schizotheca

rosea, Teutliopsis rosea.

Meaning:- Atriplex (L) A name used by the Roman naturalist and philosopher

Pliny, from the ancient Greek meaning black and intertwined.

Rosea (L) Rose-like, rose coloured.

General description:- Erect, divaricately branched, densely grey-farinose annual.

Stems:-

1) 30-100 cm, branches almost subterete, smooth, leafy, becoming stiff and

stramineous

Leaves:-

1) 1-4(-6) x 0.5-3 cm, Alternate, ovate to triangular-ovate or rhombic-deltoid,

sininuate-dentate or lobed, cuneate at the base, acute, greyish-green to white

beneath. thick-fleshy.

a) petiole, absent or short, 2-10 mm.

Flowers:-

1) Inflorescence, 20-50 cm, branched.

2) Flowers. clustered in the axils of small bracts or arranged in lax, ebracteate

spikes.

3) Perianth segments,

a) male flowers, 5, c. 0.6 x 0.4 mm, oblong, lanuginose.

4) Stamens, 5.

b) filaments, glabrous c. 0.8 mm.

c) anthers, yellow.

5) Bracteoles, c. 2 x 2.2 mm, attenuate and connate at the base, broadly triangular

to rhombic-deltoid.indurate and accrescent to 6-12 mm in fruit, dentate, dorsally

rugose-tuberculate and conspicuously veined, rose-pink to whitish.

Fruit:-

1) Seed, 1.5-2 mm diam, vertical, strongly compressed, suborbicular.

a) testa, brown, pitted.

Key features:-

1) Flowers, in axillary cymes.

2) Bracteoles, 6-12 mm attenuate and connate at the base. accrescent to 6-12 mm

in fruit.

3) Densely grey-farinose.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Silt, sand and shingle by the sea, occasionally roadsides, olive groves

and wasteground. 0-400 m.

Distribution:- Scattered throughout Greece mostly coastal. Widespread in the

Mediterranean region, C Europe and temperate Asia; naturalised elsewhere. Limited

distribution on Crete, mainly around the northern coastal areas.

Flowering time:- May-Oct

Photos by:- An Other