General: Quailbush (Atriplex lentiformis) is a large, scraggly shrub with broad (deltoid), silvery leaves that have a rough feel. Plants are male or female, and the flowers on each look different, making the plants appear to be different species during the fall when they bloom.

Male plants have small, nondescript pale-yellow flowers, but they are numerous and crowded on the ends of branches. The stamens are reddish, giving the flowers a yellow-and-red appearance. Female flowers are also nondescript, but they produce small, purple, kidney-shaped fruits clustered on the ends of the branches. These fruits ripen to a tan color.

Quailbush is a fairly common component of vegetation communities along dry lakes and washes with alkaline clay soils in the Lower Sonoran (Creosote-Bursage Flats) and Upper Sonoran (Mojave Desert Scrub life zones. Quailbush make large, dense thickets in which quail, rabbits, and other animals like to hide. This is the dominant plant species around wetlands in the Las Vegas Valley.

Family: Chenopodiaceae