Atriplex hortensis L.
garden orache
Erect, monoecious annual, sparingly branched, farinose at least when young, sometimes brownish purple or reddish purple. Stems to 2.5 m high, much less in impoverished soil, stout, angular. Lvs below infl. (excluding those at base of plant) with petioles to 5 cm long; lamina 5-30 × 3-20 cm, triangular-hastate, ovate, or sagittate-ovate, narrower in infl., irregularly dentate, sinuate, to almost entire; base deeply or shallowly cordate to truncate; apex rounded to acute. Infl. terminal, narrow-paniculate, to 40 cm long; branches slender. ♂ fls: perianth c. 0.5 mm long, green with hyaline margin. ♀ fls: dimorphic, most with 2 bracteoles and perianth 0, otherwise with 5-lobed perianth and bracteoles 0. Bracteoles free, orbicular or suborbicular, very shortly stalked, entire, without appendages or tubercles, strongly accrescent, 6-12-(15) mm diam. at fruiting. Fr. circular to broad-elliptic, flattened, dimorphic: in perianth fls 1.5-2.5 mm diam. and horizontal, in bracteolate fls 2.5-4.3 mm diam. and vertical; pericarp removed fairly easily. Testa shining black, almost smooth.
N.: Hawke's Bay, Wellington; S.: Canterbury, C. Otago.
E. Europe, W. and C. Asia 1958
Cultivation escape, waste land, roadsides and dry riverbeds near gardens.
FL Dec-Feb.
Although garden orache was presumably introduced for culinary purposes, it is not commonly cultivated. The reddish purple cv. 'Rubra' is sometimes grown and this is naturalised with the commoner green form, especially in C. Otago.
The earlier record (Allan 1940) of Rumex patientia L., patience dock, is probably in error for A. hortensis. Patience dock is also a minor European pot herb but is unknown in N.Z. wild or cultivated.
