Atriplex hortensis

Garden orach, Garden Orach

Family: Chenopodiaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Garden orach is a naturalized annual found in coastal and southern California regions including Northern Coast, San Francisco Bay, Southern California, and the Modoc Plateau in open, disturbed places at elevations below 1,300 meters. Flowering from July to November, this plant produces green flowers with distinctive elliptic to round bracts that develop during fruit formation. Growing 50 to 180 centimeters tall with an erect main stem and ascending branches, it has a striate stem that is sparsely scaly. Its alternate leaves vary from 12 to 150 millimeters long, ranging from ovate to deltate in shape, with edges that can be entire, wavy, or slightly toothed. The plant produces two distinct types of seeds: smaller black horizontal seeds and larger brown vertical seeds.

Habitat: Open, disturbed places

Bloom period: Jul-Nov

Elevation: < 1300 m

Bioregions: NCo, SnFrB, SCo, MP, expected elsewhere

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