Erect perennial to 50 cm high. Leaves varying from narrowly-elliptic to elliptic, subsessile, 2.5–5 mm long in the north, up to obovate, 10–40 mm long in the south, entire to strongly sinuate-dentate; upper surface glabrescent, lower surface scurfy to scaly. Male flowers in small glomerules 2–3 mm diam. in terminal axils. Female flowers in scattered axillary clusters. Fruiting bracteoles sessile, united into a swollen campanulate tube 1.5–2.5 mm long, or rarely tube narrowly deltoid and passing into a short stipe; apex truncate to rounded, entire or 3-toothed; appendages small and tooth-like, 1–4 on each face, or absent.

Native.

Found in northern and east-central W.A. eastwards into N.T. and S.A., central and south-western Qld and north-western N.S.W.

W.A.: 64 km S of Broome, A.C. Beauglehole 11280 (PERTH). 

N.T.: Mt Wedge Stn, A.O. Nicholls 898 (NT). 

S.A.: Mt Illbillee area, A.C. Beauglehole 25629 (PERTH). 

Qld: Emerald, S.L. Everist 2504 (BRI). 

N.S.W.: 75 km W of Wanaaring, S. Jacobs 3128 (NSW).

The northern and southern variants of this species differ greatly in leaf shape and size, but somewhat less in bracteole dimensions; these variants grade evenly into each other. A. cornigera, a species of central Qld, is closely related and plants intermediate in form between the two may be found in south-eastern Qld, far northern N.S.W., and southern N.T.

G.M. Cunningham et al., Plants of Western New South Wales 238, 242 fig. 44(7) (1982); P.G. Wilson, Chenopodiaceae in Flora of Australia 4: 93, fig. 21B (1984).

Flora of Australia Volume 4