Atriplex cinerea Poir.
grey salt bush
Low, spreading, dense, much-branched, dioecious subshrub, densely covered with silvery grey scales, with main stems often slightly horizontal and rather slender. Shoots strongly angular, with scattered glandular hairs. Lvs subsessile, 1-2.7 × 2-4 mm, linear or oblong-linear, entire; base attenuate; apex obtuse or nearly so. ♂ fls in continuous or interrupted terminal spikes or panicles. ♀ fls solitary or few in axillary clusters, monomorphic; bracteoles united for c. ⅓ length, to 3.5 × 3.5 mm at fruiting, often smaller, broad-ovate to rhombic, entire; united part becoming indurate; free parts becoming ± swollen, spongy; apex obtuse. Seed c. 2 mm diam., circular, with radicles protruding.
N.; S.
Australia, including Lord Howe Id 1853
first recorded by Hooker from Palliser Bay, Wellington, but only collected twice in the last 100 years, on shingle beaches - Boulder Bank, Nelson, in 1960, and on D'Urville Id, in 1961.
FL Dec-Feb.
Grey salt bush is extremely variable in stature, lf shape and bracteole morphology. This description is based on the limited material available from D'Urville Id. Although treated as naturalised here, grey salt bush may be indigenous.
