Allenrolfea occidentalis
Death Valley Natl. Park, CA
March 2005

Trees and Shrubs of Kern County (Sep 2012)

Allenrolfea occidentalis (Halostachys occidentalis S. Watson 1871) Kuntze 1891. Iodine bush.  Densely branched shrub to 2 m high and broad with alternate branching and jointed stems, the stems green and succulent when young, the green parts like a string of juicy rosary beads, older stems brownish and leathery; leaves scale-like.  Flowering in the summer, flowers inconspicuous along a terminal axis, without petals, only a 4–5 lobed minute green calyx (1–1.5 mm) that in fruit covers the utricular pericarpium. Common about moist alkali valleys or flats and dunes bordering dry salt lakes; Oregon, Utah to central and eastern California, and to the Cape Region in Baja California. Iodine bush scrub recognized in MCV2 when dominant with >2% cover.  Type from the Great Salt Lake, UT. Kern Co.: “Common shrub of alkali sinks in the desert and the valley, occurring sporadically west to Soda Lake and northwest to the Cholame Valley in San Luis Obispo County” (Twisselmann), 23–747 m (CCH).