saltbush

American  

[sawlt-boosh] / ˈsɔltˌbʊʃ /

noun

1. any of various plants or shrubs of the genus Atriplex, having mostly alternate leaves and clusters of inconspicuous flowers, often growing in saline or alkaline soil.

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saltbush British  

/ ˈsɔːltˌbʊʃ /

noun

1. any of various chenopodiaceous shrubs of the genus Atriplex that grow in alkaline desert regions

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Etymology

Origin of saltbush

1860–65; salt ¹ + bush ¹, so called because they thrive in saline or alkaline soils

Example Sentences

Surrounded by oil fields and almond and orange groves, the 93,000-acre preserve is an ecological oasis of open grasslands, saltbush shrubs, riparian wetlands, and native plants and wildlife.

From Washington Post • Feb. 23, 2022

The silvery panels looked like an interloper amid a patchwork landscape of lush almond groves, barren brown dirt and saltbush scrub, framed by the blue-green strip of the California Aqueduct bringing water from the north.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 31, 2019

The backdrop to an area of coal-fired power stations, lead smelting and mining, the coastal landscape is spiked with saltbush that can live on a trickle of brackish seawater seeping up through the arid soil.

From The Guardian • Nov. 24, 2012

It moved here, to remote ranchlands where even the plant names — catclaw, saltbush, snakeweed — sound forbidding.

From Time • Jun. 4, 2010

At the edge of the dry riverbed, in a thicket of saltbush not far from where they had parked, a large object was concealed beneath a dun-colored tarpaulin.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer