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Salsola australis


Higher Taxonomy
Family: ChenopodiaceaeView DescriptionDichotomous Key
Common Name: GOOSEFOOT FAMILY
Habit: Annual to shrub; hairs simple, stellate, or glandular; plants in several genera scaly, mealy, or powdery from collapsed glands; monoecious, dioecious, with bisexual flowers, or with both bisexual and unisexual flowers. Stem: occasionally fleshy. Leaf: blade simple, generally alternate, occasionally fleshy or reduced to scales, veins pinnate; stipules 0. Inflorescence: raceme, spike, catkin-like, spheric head, axillary clusters of flowers, or flowers 1; bracts 0--5, herbaceous, generally persistent or strongly modified in fruit, wings, tubercles or spines present or 0. Flower: bisexual or unisexual, small, generally green; calyx parts (1)3--5, or 0 in pistillate flowers, free or fused basally (or +- throughout), leaf-like in texture, membranous, or fleshy, deciduous or not, often strongly modified in fruit; corolla 0; stamens 1--5, opposite sepals, filaments free, equal; anthers 4-chambered; ovary superior (1/2-inferior), chamber 1; ovule 1; styles, stigmas 1--4 (or stigmas sessile). Fruit: achene or utricle, generally falling with persistent calyx or bracts. Seed: 1, small, lenticular to spheric; seed coat smooth to finely dotted, warty, net-like, or prickly, margin occasionally winged.
Genera In Family: 100 genera, 1500 species: worldwide, especially deserts, saline or alkaline soils; some cultivated for food (Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris, beet, Swiss chard; Spinacia oleracea L., spinach; Chenopodium quinoa Willd., quinoa); and some worldwide, naturalized ruderal or noxious agricultural weeds. Note: Nitrophila treated in Amaranthaceae, Sarcobatus treated in Sarcobataceae. Key to genera revised by Elizabeth H. Zacharias to incorporate Extriplex and Stutzia, 2 genera segregated from Atriplex. Native spp. of Kochia now treated in Neokochia. Chenopodiaceae often treated now within a more broadly circumscribed Amaranthaceae (Morales-Briones et al. 2021).
eFlora Treatment Author: Mihai Costea, family description, key to genera, revised by Thomas J. Rosatti & Elizabeth H. Zacharias, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin, David J. Keil, Thomas J. Rosatti, Margriet Wetherwax.
Genus: SalsolaView DescriptionDichotomous Key


Habit: Annual to shrub. Stem: simple to many-branched. Leaf: generally reduced distally along stem, thread-like to +- cylindric, spine-tipped, in age generally thick, rigid. Inflorescence: axillary; bracts 1--2; flowers generally 1 per axil. Flower: bisexual; sepals 4--5, thickened in fruit, persistent, generally tubercled to winged; stamens generally 5, exserted, style branches generally 2, exserted. Fruit: spheric to obovoid; tip +- depressed. Seed: horizontal.
Etymology: (Latin: salty, from habitats) Note: An alternative treatment as separate genera Kali (Salsola australis, Salsola gobicola, Salsola paulsenii, Salsola ryanii, Salsola tragus), Caroxylon (Salsola damascena), and Salsola (Salsola soda) has been proposed (Akhani et al. 2007 Int J Plant Sci 168:931--956).
eFlora Treatment Author: G. Frederic Hrusa
Reference: Mosyakin 2003 FNANM 4:398--403; Hrusa & Gaskin 2008 Madroño 55:113--131
Salsola australis R. Br.
NATURALIZED
Habit: Annual < 2 m, branched, not readily breaking at base, glabrous to +- minutely scabrous (short-bristly). Stem: brittle, blue-glaucous to green, occasionally red-striped. Leaf: opposite or alternate below, alternate above, 8--52 mm, blade +- deciduous, base broader in age, margin broad, translucent, tip sharp-pointed to spiny. Inflorescence: open to dense, prickly, generally not rigid; bract not surrounding fruit, subcylindric, weakly spiny, narrowly wing-margined in age, lower margin +- translucent. Flower: sepals 2.5--3 mm, lobes soft in fruit; anthers 0.5--0.7 mm. Fruit: deciduous in age; 4.8--7.9 mm diam including wings; developed wings 5, opaque, veins few, generally dark, margin generally smooth, smallest wings fan-shaped to broadly obovate. Chromosomes: 2n=18.
Ecology: Disturbed places, road banks, open slopes, railroad tracks, shorelines; Elevation: < 700 m. Bioregional Distribution: GV, CW, SCo, D (rare DMoj); Distribution Outside California: southwestern North America, Mexico, Africa; possibly native to Australia. Flowering Time: Mar--Jan
Synonyms: Salsola kali L. subsp. pontica (Pall.) Mosyakin, misappl.; Salsola tragus, misappl., in part
Unabridged Synonyms: Kali australis (R. Br.) Akhani & Roalson; Salsola kali L. var. tenuifolia Tausch, misappl.
Jepson eFlora Author: G. Frederic Hrusa
Reference: Mosyakin 2003 FNANM 4:398--403; Hrusa & Gaskin 2008 Madroño 55:113--131
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)
Noxious Weed listed on the CDFA Weed Pest Ratings table
View the CDFA Pest Rating page for Salsola australis
Weed listed by Cal-IPC

Previous taxon: Salsola
Next taxon: Salsola damascena

Botanical illustration including Salsola australisbotanical illustration including Salsola australis


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Citation for this treatment: G. Frederic Hrusa 2012, Salsola australis, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=43028, accessed on December 02, 2024.

Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on December 02, 2024.

Salsola australis
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©2007 Neal Kramer
Salsola australis
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©2015 Keir Morse
Salsola australis
click for image enlargement
©2008 Keir Morse
Salsola australis
click for image enlargement
©2015 Keir Morse
Salsola australis
click for image enlargement
©2015 Keir Morse

More photos of Salsola australis
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Geographic subdivisions for Salsola australis:
GV, CW, SCo, D (rare DMoj)
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map of distribution 1

(Note: any qualifiers in the taxon distribution description, such as 'northern', 'southern', 'adjacent' etc., are not reflected in the map above, and in some cases indication of a taxon in a subdivision is based on a single collection or author-verified occurrence).






 

Data provided by the participants of the  Consortium of California Herbaria.

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All markers link to CCH specimen records. The original determination is shown in the popup window.
Blue markers indicate specimens that map to one of the expected Jepson geographic subdivisions (see left map). Purple markers indicate specimens collected from a garden, greenhouse, or other non-wild location.
Yellow markers indicate records that may provide evidence for eFlora range revision or may have georeferencing or identification issues.
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CCH collections by month Flowering-Fruiting Monthly Counts

Duplicates counted once; synonyms included.
Species do not include records of infraspecific taxa, if there are more than 1 infraspecific taxon in CA.
Blue line denotes eFlora flowering time (fruiting time in some monocot genera).