Atriplex halimusL.

saltbush

WFO wfo-0000556105 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Atriplex halimus, photographed by Bastien Alegot
fig. a Bastien Alegot, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-10 / obs. 187956393

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K005392706
Filed as
Atriplex halimus L.
Det. by
Paul Aellen
Collected
s.coll 1854-09-12
Origin
SY
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 32 botanical countries

Regions where Atriplex halimus is native: Algeria, Canary Is., Cape Verde, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, Madeira, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sinai, Türkiye, Baleares, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain AlgeriaEgyptEritreaEthiopiaLibyaMaliMauritaniaMoroccoSomaliaTunisiaWestern SaharaCyprusEast Aegean Is.IraqLebanon-SyriaPalestineSaudi ArabiaSinaiTürkiyeCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiPortugalSiciliaSpain Canary Is.Cape VerdeMadeiraBalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Atriplex halimus, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Canary Is. CNY
Cape Verde CVI
Egypt EGY
Eritrea ERI
Ethiopia ETH
Libya LBY
Madeira MDR
Mali MLI
Mauritania MTN
Morocco MOR
Somalia SOM
Tunisia TUN
Western Sahara WSA
Baleares BAL EUROPE
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iraq IRQ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Sinai SIN
Türkiye TUR

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,867 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 2.2 °C 8.0 °C 13.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.0 °C 26.9 °C 33.3 °C
Annual rainfall 163 mm 585 mm 862 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 2 mm 26 mm 141 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,867 research-grade observations of Atriplex halimus that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 20 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Atriplex halimoides Tineo
  • Atriplex halimus f. granulata (L.Chevall.) Maire
  • Atriplex halimus f. intermedia (L.Chevall.) Maire
  • Atriplex halimus f. ramosissima (L.Chevall.) Maire
  • Atriplex halimus f. rifea (Sennen & Mauricio) Maire
  • Atriplex halimus f. venosa (L.Chevall.) Maire
  • Atriplex halimus var. argutidens Bornm.
  • Atriplex halimus var. granulata L.Chevall.
  • Atriplex halimus var. hastulata Maire
  • Atriplex halimus var. intermedia L.Chevall.
  • Atriplex halimus var. ramosissima L.Chevall.
  • Atriplex halimus var. rifea Sennen & Mauricio
  • Atriplex halimus var. schweinfurthii Boiss.
  • Atriplex halimus var. serrulata (Pau) Alcaraz, Garre & Sánchez-Gómez
  • Atriplex halimus var. venosa L.Chevall.
  • Atriplex kataf Ehrenb. ex Boiss.
  • Atriplex parvifolia Pau
  • Atriplex serrulata Pau
  • Chenopodium halimus (L.) Thunb.
  • Schizotheca halimus (L.) Fourr.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.