General: Fourwing Saltbush (Atriplex canescens) is a rounded shrub with gray-green, glandular leaves that is found on alkaline and saline soils (which can be most anywhere in the desert).

Fourwing Saltbush is a fairly common or dominant component of shrub communities on alkaline and saline soils around desert playas and on desert flats in the Upper Sonoran (Mojave Desert Scrub) life zone. Fourwing Saltbush is also a fairly common in shrub communities on desert bajadas.

Family: Goosefoot (Chenopodiaceae).

Other Names: Shad-scale, Shadscale

Plant Form: Rounded shrub.

Height: To about 6-feet high.

Bark: Silver gray.

Stems: Erect; many branches, ascending and spreading.

Leaves: 1/3 to 2 inches long, narrow; white-scaly with bead-like hairs; alternate; groove down the center; somewhat fleshy.

Flowers: Pistillate inflorescence terminal, spike-like; individual flowers small and inconspicuous.

Seeds: 1.5 to 2.5 mm, enclosed in two papery bracts that grow at right angles and form a somewhat spherical structure around the seed.

Habitat: Dry, poorly to well-drained sandy, gravelly, alkaline, and saline soils on flats and bajadas.

Elevation: below about 8,000 feet.

Distribution: Western U.S.

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