Common Name: AMARANTH FAMILY Habit: Annual to subshrub; monoecious and/or dioecious; occasionally spiny; hairs simple (branched). Leaf: blade simple, alternate or opposite, margins entire or serrate; veins pinnate; stipules 0. Inflorescence: axillary or terminal; 3-flowered cymes in dense spikes, heads or panicles; bracts 0 or 1--5, persistent; bractlets 0--2. Flower: bisexual or unisexual, small, green (+- white), yellow or purple; perianth parts 0 or (1)3--5, free or fused basally, scarious or hardened, persistent; stamens 1--5, opposite perianth parts, free or basally fused as a tube, generally unequal, occasionally alternate with appendages on stamen tubes (pseudostaminodes), anthers 2- or 4-chambered; ovary superior, chamber 1; ovule 1 (2--many); style (0)1--3, stigmas 1--3(5). Fruit: utricle; generally with persistent perianth or bracts. Seed: 1 [2+], small, lenticular to spheric, smooth or dotted to striate or tubercled. Genera In Family: +- 75 genera, 900 species: cosmopolitan, especially disturbed, arid, saline or alkaline soils; some cultivated for food, ornamental; many naturalized, ruderal or agricultural weeds. Note: Amaranthaceae including Chenopodiaceae by some. Polycnemoideae, represented in California by Nitrophila, formerly considered subfamily of Chenopodiaceae, but needs further research. Guilleminea densa (Willd.) Moq. var. aggregata Uline & W.L. Bray is a waif. Froelichia gracilis (Hook.) Moq. possibly naturalized. eFlora Treatment Author: Mihai Costea, except as noted Scientific Editor: Douglas H. Goldman, Bruce G. Baldwin.
Habit: Annual or subshrub, canescent to densely woolly, or glabrous in age; hairs forked. Leaf: generally opposite, occasionally alternate at base, sessile or short-petioled, petiole <= 2.5 mm; blade round to lanceolate, cordate, base wedge-shaped or oblique, tip acute to obtuse, margins entire, papery to fleshy. Inflorescence: axillary head-like cymes, flowers 1--3(5), sessile, +- enclosed by 2 +- opposite leaves hardened and fused in age; bracts, bractlets persistent, ovate, scarious, woolly. Flower: bisexual; perianth parts 5, free, keeled, outer 3 > inner 2, scarious or leathery, glabrous or woolly, tip acute or obtuse; stamens 5, filaments fused at base into short tube, anthers 2-chambered, pseudostaminodes 0 or short, triangular, +- 0.2 mm; ovary +- spheric, ovule 1, style 0 or short, +- 0.1 mm, stigmas 2-lobed, deltoid (irregularly 3-lobed). Fruit: +- spheric, wall membranous. Seed: obovoid, brown-red. Etymology: (Ivar T. Tidestrom, Swedish-born botanist of southwest United States, 1864--1956)
Tidestromia suffruticosa (Torr.) Standl. var. oblongifolia (S. Watson) Sánch.Pino & Flores Olv.
NATIVE Stem: 10--60 cm, ascending or decumbent, woolly. Leaf: 10--50(60) mm, 4--22 mm wide, oblong to narrowly ovate or round, papery, persistently gray-white, base cordate. Inflorescence: 1--3-flowered; involucre leaf blades 3--25 mm, 2--20 mm wide, like stem leaves; bracts 0.8--1.5 mm, 0.8--1.5 mm wide, bractlets 0.8--1.5 mm, 0.6--1.5 mm wide, woolly, occasionally glabrous in age, tip acute or obtuse. Flower: perianth 1.7--2.7 mm, +- yellow or yellow-brown, densely woolly, occasionally glabrous in age; stamen tube 0.3--0.8 mm; filaments 0.4--0.8 mm. Fruit: 1--2 mm. Seed: 0.9--1.6 mm. Ecology: Dry washes, rocky hillsides, sandy or slightly alkaline soils; Elevation: < 1200 m. Bioregional Distribution: D; Distribution Outside California: Nevada, Arizona, northern Baja California. Flowering Time: Apr--Dec Synonyms: Tidestromia oblongifolia (S. Watson) Standl.; Tidestromia oblongifolia subsp. cryptantha (S. Watson) Wiggins Jepson eFlora Author: Mihai Costea Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange) Previous taxon: Tidestromia lanuginosa Next taxon: Anacardiaceae
Botanical illustration including Tidestromia suffruticosa var. oblongifolia
Citation for this treatment: Mihai Costea 2012, Tidestromia suffruticosa var. oblongifolia, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=81586, accessed on April 25, 2024.
Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on April 25, 2024.
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