Atriplex confertifolia

Shadscale

Family: Chenopodiaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Shadscale is a California native shrub found in the eastern Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, southern coastal ranges, and Mojave Desert in alkaline flats, gravelly slopes, and pinyon/juniper woodland at elevations up to 2,400 meters. Flowering from April to July, this plant produces small, inconspicuous flowers nestled among dense, gray-scaled leaves. Growing as a compact, rounded shrub less than one meter tall with many stiff, spreading branches that become spine-like with age, it develops a distinctively structured form. Its leaves are elliptic to wide-ovate, 8 to 24 millimeters long, with a firm texture and a dense covering of gray scales that give the plant a distinctive silvery-gray appearance. The fruit consists of small, rounded bracts surrounding a tiny seed, well-adapted to its arid and alkaline habitats.

Habitat: Alkaline flats, gravelly slopes in scrub, pinyon/juniper woodland

Bloom period: Apr-Jul

Elevation: < 2400 m

Bioregions: SNH (e slope), GB, SCoRI, DMoj

California counties: San Bernardino, Inyo, Kern, Riverside, Los Angeles, Modoc, Lassen, Mono, Imperial, San Luis Obispo, Humboldt, Fresno, Monterey, San Joaquin, Solano, Stanislaus, Tulare, Merced, San Diego, Marin

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.