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Sonoran Desert Goosefoots

Annuals, Perennials, and Shrubs. Flowers without showy petals, often enclosed in bracts, and borne in dense spikes or catkins. Fruit a capsule containing a single seed. Alternate leaves often scurfy/canescent.

Quailbush

Atriplex lentiformis

Four-winged Saltbush

Atriplex canescens

Large shrub of soil that is partially damp and saline/alkaline. Abundant along major river courses and in areas near irrigation ditches. Large panicles of flatted seeds on branch ends. Detailed Description

Large shrub of alkaline soils ranging to slightly drier habitats than Quailbush. Seeds have four, papery wings around the capsule. Leaves linear, silvery canescent. Detailed Description

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Wheel-scale Saltbush	Atriplex elegans	Allscale Salt Bush	Atriplex polycarpa
Summer to autumn annual, sometimes perennial. Gray scurfy leaves. Fruit capsules flattened and with a wheel of fleshy fingers forming a corona. Frequent near agricultural settings and as a weed in urban areas of the Sonoran Desert. The photograph is hosted at Wikimedia. Detailed Description		Gray-green shrub of alkaline soils. Small, oblong leaves. Abundant scaled fruit at branch tips. Detailed Description
Desert Seepweed	Suaeda moquinii	Lamb's Quarters	Chenopodium album
Shrubby plant with fleshy leaves found in saline/damp soil as along rivers in the Sonoran Desert. Detailed Description		Leafy weed of cool seasons found growing usu. near agric. fields. Leaves whitish on top surface. Leaves coursely toothed; flowers green & without petals. This photo is hosted at Wikimedia Detailed Description
Tumbleweed / Russian Thistle	Salsola tragus
Robust summer to autumn annual growing mostly as a weed near agriculture, in fallow fields, but also along riparian zones. Forming tumbleweeds with stems that are wirey and beset with spinescent leaves. Detailed Description