ATRIPLEX ROSEA

Family:- AMARANTHACEAE/A. prostrata group

Common Name:- Rosy orache

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:-

a) 30-100 cm.

b) and branches almost circular in cross section (subterete).

c) smooth, leafy, becoming stiff.

d) straw-coloured (stramineous).

Leaves:-

a) 1-4(-6) x 0.5-3 cm.

b) Alternate.

c) ovate to triangular-ovate or rhombic-deltoid, with rather uneven deep rounded

wavy undulations (sinuate)-dentate or lobed, wedge-shaped (cuneate) at the

base, acute.

d) greyish-green to white beneath.

e) thick-fleshy.

f) stalk (petiole) absent or short, 2-10 mm.

Flowers:-

1) Inflorescence:

a) 20-50 cm.

b) branched.

2) Flowers:

a) 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, downy (lanuginose) without.

4) Stamens:

a) 5.

b) filaments hairless (glabrous), c. 0.8 mm.

c) anthers yellow.

5) Bracteoles:

a) c. 2 x 2.2 mm.

b) gradually narrowing (attenuate) and united (connate) at the base.

c) broadly triangular to rhombic-deltoid.

d) hardening (indurate) and increasing in size (accrescent) to 6-12 mm in fruit.

e) dentate, dorsally wrinkled with small, wart-like projections (rugose-

tuberculate) and conspicuously veined.

f) rose-pink to whitish.

Fruit:-

1) Seed:

a) 1.5-2 mm diam.

b) vertical, strongly compressed, suborbicular.

c) 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.

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