Single Record

PhotoRecords: YES Rich Haswell: Rio Grande Co, Del Norte, in floodplain of the Rio Grande, 2 Aug 2015; 5 Oct 2017; 4 Oct 2022;

Comments: For garden orache there are only four Watershed herbarium vouchers, from around and in the town of Alamosa and near the town of Manassa. In the West and northern Plains and Midwest, Atriplex hortensis is an exotic, grown as an herb for cooking, sometimes escaping and thriving in floodplains, by road sides, in vacant town spaces, etc. The Rio Grande Co photorecord locations (2015-2023) lie within the town limits of Del Norte and would add Saguache to Watershed counties in Ackerfield (2022) and BONAP (2022). There are at least two patches: near the floodplain of the Rio Grande, and on the south side of Hwy 160 at the western town limits. There are a few collections from Taos Co in New Mexico but none farther south in the Rio Grande drainage or indeed in the USA. As some other species of Atriplex, A. hortensis plants grow dimorphic seeds of quite different sizes. Studies have shown that the larger seeds germinate more successfully in saline conditions, increasing the chances of reproduction in an ecosystem where the salinity may vary, as in the Rio Grande floodplain of Del Norte (Sai Kachout et al., 2016).