White-scale saltbush, wheelscale orach

Obione elegans Moquin-Tandon in A. P. de Candolle and A. L. P. P. de Candolle, Prodr. 13(2): 113. 1849

Herbs, annual (or sometimes perennial?). Stems ascending or procumbent to erect, stramineous or whitish, simple or much branched at base, obtusely angled in age, mainly 0.5-4.5 dm, slender or stout, scurfy to glabrate. Leaves many, subsessile or shortly petiolate; blade elliptic to spatulate, oblanceolate, oblong, or obovate, 5-30(-35) × 2-8(-12) mm, base cuneate to attenuate, margin entire or irregularly dentate, densely scurfy abaxially, usually green and glabrate adaxially. Staminate flowers with 3-5-parted perianth. Pistillate flowers intermixed with staminate in small axillary clusters. Fruiting bracteoles subsessile or short stipitate, orbiculate, strongly compressed, 2-4 mm and as wide, united except at thin margin, margin dentate, terminal teeth often prominent, faces smooth or with cristate appendages (thornberi phase). Seeds brown, 1-1.5 mm wide.

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora): sw United States, n Mexico.