[ 1721 ]
CHENOPODIUM rubrum.
Red Goosefoot.
PENTANDRIA Digynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. 5-cleft, inferior. Cor. none. Seed 1,
lenticular, invested with the closed five-sided calyx.
Spec. Char. Leaves triangular approaching to rhomboid,
deeply toothed and somewhat sinuated. Clusters
upright, compound, leafy.
Syn. Chenopodium rubrum. Linn. Sp. PI. 3 1 8 . Sm.
FI. Brit. 2 7 4 . Huds. 105. With. 2 7 1 . Hull. 56.
Relh. 100. Sibih. 88. Abbot. 54. Curt. Lond.
fasc. 6. t. 21.
Blitum Pes anserinus dictum. Raii Syn. 154.
C o m m o n in waste ground among rubbish, especially in
situations that are low and muddy, and in a rich soil, flowering
from August to October.
Root annual. Herb smooth, varying much in luxuriance,
as well as in colour, being often tinged with red, and in exposed
situations very much so. When bruised it has a faint
foetid odour. Stem generally erect, from 1 to 3 feet high,
branched, somewhat pyramidal, leafy, round, furrowed.
Leaves alternate, on stalks, triangular but lengthened out at
the base so as to be almost rhomboid, deeply toothed and
more or less sinuated, scarcely shining. Clusters of flowers
axillary, rather spreading, compound, interspersed with numerous
little leaves, often red. Calyx mostly smooth. Seeds
blackish, shining, smooth, smaller than in most others of the
genus, being about the size of common san,d, whereas those
of C. urlicum are, as Mr. Curtis observed, much larger. Ray
mentions a plant resembling this, Syn. 154. n. 4, whose seeds
he says are extremely minute ; which induces us to consider it
as a variety of what is here described.