Atriplex cinerea
Common name
grey saltbush
Family
Amaranthaceae
Flora category
Vascular – Native
Endemic taxon
Yes
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
ATRCIN
Chromosome number
2n = 54
Current conservation status
The threat classification status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2017 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) – more information about this can be found on the NZTCS website This report includes a statistical summary and brief notes on changes since 2012 and replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Authors: By Peter J. de Lange, Jeremy R. Rolfe, John W. Barkla, Shannel P. Courtney, Paul D. Champion, Leon R. Perrie, Sarah M. Beadel, Kerry A. Ford, Ilse Breitwieser, Ines Schönberger, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Peter B. Heenan and Kate Ladley. Please note, threat classifications are often suggested by authors when publications fall between NZTCS assessment periods – a suggested threat classification status has not been assessed by the NZTCS panel.
Source: NZTCS and licensed by DOC for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
2017 | Threatened – Nationally Critical | Qualifiers: SO
Previous conservation statuses
2012 | Threatened – Nationally Critical | Qualifiers: SO
2009 | Threatened – Nationally Critical | Qualifiers: SO
2004 | Non-resident Native – Coloniser
Brief description
Low greyish shrub of open coastal areas. Leaves semi-fleshy, grey, narrow, with white flecks on surface. Twigs reddish, covered in fine grains. Flowers and fruit inconspicuous, in leaf bases.
Distribution
Indigenous. New Zealand: South Island (Collected from Boulder Bank in Nelson in 1960 and DUrville Island in 1961, still present in the Waimea Estuary). Historically it occurred at Palliser Bay and Wellington. Also known from Australia, including Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands.
Habitat
Coastal. On boulder beaches, within salt marshes, on barrier bar sand spits and shell banks.
Features
Sprawling, semi-erect, woody, heavily branched, leafy, dioecious or subdioecious shrub, forming mounds up to 1.5 × 4 m. Branchlets stout, rooting freely on contact with soil; stems at first ridged and angular, soon becoming terete and woody with age. All parts of young growth covered in a fine, scurfy, farinose pubescence; coalescing with age to form silvery white scurfy scales. Leaves 15–20 × 32–46 mm, linear-oblong, lanceolate, rarely weakly hastate, silvery grey, greyish white or occasionally pinkish grey, under surface with pale white, thickened midrib. Petioles short, 1–3 mm, stout, silvery white. Leaf surface ± mat, glabrous, cuticle soon cracking in an anastomosing pattern made up of ± circular scales; apex white slightly thickened, apiculate, apiculus pink, deciduous, 0.5–0.8 mm; base acute, attenuate, rounded or very rarely truncate ; margin entire, lightly curved, occasionally sparsely glandular hairy near leaf base. Female flowers borne in leaf axils, either solitary, or in small axillary clusters, rarely forming axillary and terminal spikes. Female flowers occasionally found within the lower leaf axils of male plants. Perianth absent; bracteoles 2, 2 mm diameter, lower half fused, margins initially entire, either remaining so or developing appendages in fruit; stigmas 2, c.3 mm long, pink, filiform, slightly tapering, minutely plumose-papillate, ovary 0.35 mm, ovoid. Male inflorescence 30–140 mm long, conspicuous, dense, forming large interrupted or continuous oblong or obovoid spikes, these often panicled toward branch apices; glomerules 5–30 mm long, purple-green, pinkish red or wine-red. Flowers unisexual; perianth lobes 5, pink or wine-red, 1.7 mm long, obovate, apex sharply inflexed, cucullate, exterior towards apex with dense vesicular covering; stamens 5–6, filaments 0 .8 mm long, white, anthers 0.8 mm long, broad-oblanceolate, pollen yellowish golden. Fruiting bracteoles subsessile or shortly stipitate; stipe turbinate, woody; bracteoles ovoid to broadly deltoid or rhomboid, 6–10 mm long and wide, united towards base, corky or ± woody and swollen toward the centre and base, otherwise coriaceous with an entire margin; surface smooth or ornamented with verrucose appendages on one or both sides. Seed circular 3–4 mm diameter, testa chestnut-brown, smooth and glossy; radicle lateral, erect.
Similar taxa
None
Flowering
August - June
Flower colours
Red/Pink, Yellow
Fruiting
September - August
Life cycle
Spongy nutlet dispersed by water and possibly also wind and granivory (Thorsen et al., 2009).
Propagation technique
Easy to grow from cuttings. Plant layers itself producing adventitious roots off decumbent stems. Seed ad cuttings may be collected at any time. Cuttings establish well in river sand. Plant grows well in full sun and wind in a gritty free-draining soil. Also grows well in soils with a high pH and bird manure.
Threats
Now known from just one natural population. It has also been successfully established in a number of sites around Nelson. Vulnerable to browsing animals and coastal erosion.
Etymology
atriplex: From an ancient Latin name whose derivation is uncertain, but a possible explanation is the name comes from the Greek a- ‘without’ and traphein ‘nourishment’ because many of these species grow in arid desert soils
cinerea: Ash-grey
Where To Buy
Occasionally offered by specialist native plant nurseries. Most commercial stock seen is female.
Attribution
Description modified from de Lange, et al. (2000).
References and further reading
de Lange, P.J.; Murray, B.G.; Gardner, R.O. 1998: Atriplex cinerea (Chenopodiaceae) in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 36: 521–529.
Thorsen, M. J.; Dickinson, K. J. M.; Seddon, P. J. 2009: Seed dispersal systems in the New Zealand flora. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 11(4): 285–309.
NZPCN Fact Sheet citation
Please cite as: de Lange, P.J. (Year at time of access): Atriplex cinerea Fact Sheet (content continuously updated). New Zealand Plant Conservation Network. https://www.nzpcn.org.nz/flora/species/atriplex-cinerea/ (Date website was queried)