Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Atriplex prostrata
Common name
Orache, Hastate orache
Family
Chenopodiaceae
Where found
Along streams, seasonally or permanently wet sites, and moist salty sites. Widespread.
Notes
Introduced annual herb to 0.8 m tall or sprawling to prostrate. Stems grooved and often red at the nodes. Lower leaves opposite each other, 1.5-8 cm long, 10–60 mm wide, with pointed basal lobes, or the leaves triangular. Upper leaves alternating along the stems, triangular to oval, bases tapered, margins entire, decreasing in size towards the tips of the stems. Leaves scurfy to hairless, margins entire to sparsely toothed. Male and female flowers on the same plant, small. Male flowers with 5 'petals', lacking bracteoles. Female flowers usually with 0 'petals', but subtended by a pair of bracteoles, which enlarge and cover the seed case at maturity. Flowers in mixed clusters along the stems.
PlantNET description and line drawing of seed case: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Atriplex~prostrata (accessed 4 January, 2021)
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