Atriplex rosea

Tumbling orach, Tumbling Orach

Family: Chenopodiaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Tumbling orach is a naturalized annual herb found in California's open, disturbed places and fields at elevations below 2,500 meters. Flowering from July to October, this plant produces small, unremarkable flowers on erect branches that can grow 40 to 150 centimeters tall. Growing with ascending stems that are smooth and nearly hairless, it develops sturdy, wavy-edged leaves that are ovate to lanceolate in shape. Its leaves are distinctive, measuring 10 to 60 millimeters long, appearing green with a dense, fine scale covering on the undersides. The plant produces small, diamond-shaped fruit bracts that are hard and slightly tubercled, with seeds that are 2 to 2.5 millimeters long and colored brown or black.

Habitat: Common. Open, disturbed places, fields

Bloom period: Jul-Oct

Elevation: < 2500 m

Bioregions: CA (uncommon D)

California counties: Orange, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Tulare, San Bernardino, Santa Clara, San Benito, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Riverside, Kern, San Diego, Alameda, Contra Costa, Inyo, Modoc, Mono, Humboldt, Solano, Merced, Siskiyou, Lassen, San Mateo, Monterey, San Francisco, Marin, Yolo, Del Norte, San Joaquin, El Dorado, Sacramento, Butte, Tehama, Glenn, Colusa, Sierra, Lake, Stanislaus, Napa, Kings, Sutter, Plumas, Nevada, Fresno

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