Photograph from Lewis and Clark Herbarium/Academy of Natural Sciences
Gardner's Saltbush (Saltbush, Nuttall's Saltbush)
Atriplex gardneri
July 20, 1806, along the Marias River, Montana.
Saltbush is a shrub with a woody base and numerous herbaceous upper stems. Leaves are green-gray and scruffy, six times as long as they are wide. Height: 3.9-20 in (10-50 cm).
Dry alluvial flats, eroded slopes, badlands, and on saline and alkaline clay soils.
Washington south to northwestern California, east to Saskatchewan and the Dakotas, south through Wyoming and Colorado, to New Mexico and Arizona. It has been introduced into California.
