Garden Orache

We saw this beautifully coloured plant at Pearce Estate yesterday afternoon. A garden escapee, so was growing in "the wild". The Garden Orache, or Mountain Spinach (Atriplex hortensis), is a tall, erect-growing hardy annual, a native of Tartary, introduced to this country. The quality of the spinach yielded by Orache is, however, far inferior to that of Common Spinach.