Atriplex confertifolia

Shadscale fruits and leaves provide important winter browse for domestic livestock and native herbivores. Compared to fourwing saltbush (Atriplex canescens), shadscale has shorter and wider leaves and the fruit does not have four wings (although it may have two wings in a V-shape).Shadscale or spiny saltbush is an erect, rigidly branched, spiny, rounded shrub, 1-3 ft. high. Persistent, velvety-gray leaves are densely crowded on scurfy branches which may become shiny and leafless. Attractive, summer flowers are followed by masses of creamy-yellow seed clusters.