Atriplex pseudocampanulata
Aellen Fan SaltbushAnnual herb or short-lived perennial subshrub to c. 30 cm high, monoecious. Leaves sessile, rhombic, elliptic or ovate, widest at or below midway, 6–20 mm long, 3–20 mm wide, usually shallowly toothed, mealy-grey on both surfaces with minute vesicular hairs. Male flowers in small clusters at or near branch-tips, female flowers clustered in lower axils. Fruiting bracteoles free in upper half, broadly rhombic, deltoid or semicircular, usually shallowly toothed, sometimes with small spongy tubercles on one face, fused and shortly pedicellate in lower half, covered with vesicular hairs, to 4 mm long overall, usually slightly wider than long. Fruits Sep.–May.
LoM, MuM, Wim, VVP, VRiv, MSB, RobP, MuF, GipP. Also NT, SA, Qld, NSW. Occurs mainly on heavier soils fringing lakes or rivers on the Murray River floodplain downstream of about Cohuna, also recorded from railyards at Bairnsdale and Toora in Gippsland where certainly inadvertently transported with stock or stock-feed, and railway line at Bacchus Marsh. Common in degraded, salted country.
The bracteoles of this species are variable in shape and the presence/absence of dorsal outgrowths. The distinction between this and Atriplex angulata and A. eardleyae is not always clear.
Walsh, N.G. (1996). Chenopodiaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 3, Dicotyledons Winteraceae to Myrtaceae, pp. 129–199. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Spinning
