>Y6 [ 1480 ]
CHENOPODIUM polyspermum.
Round-‘leaved Goosefoot.
PENTANDRIA Digynidi
G en. Char. Cal. 5-cleft, inferior. Cor. none. Seed 1,
lenticular, invested with the closed five-sided calyx.
Spec. Char. Leaves ovate, obtuse, entire. Stem prostrate.
Clusters cymose, divaricated, leafless.
Syn. Chenopodium polyspermum. Linn. Sp. PI. 321.
Sm. Fl. Brit. '278. Huds. 101.
C. Betae folio. Raii Syn. 157*
Allseed Blite. Pet. H. Brit. t. 7. f 10.
O u r specimens of this Chenopodium Were gathered on Waste
ground in Cornwall in the latter part of summer. It is certainly
what Linnaeus intended by the above denomination, as
his definition and specimen prove; but another plant has been
confounded with this, which we have now for the first time
distinguished from it, see L 1481.
The root of C. polyspermum is annual and branched.
Stems all prostrate and widely spreading, mostly simple,
roundish, striated, leafy from the base to the extremity.
Leaves alternate, on footstalks, ovate or roundish, generally
very obtuse, quite entire and undivided, though sometimes a
little waved or irregular in their outline; their colour is a
deep grass green. Clusters of flowers very large, axillary,
sessile, cymose, spreading, repeatedly subdivided, without
any small leaves at their divarications. Flowers green. Seed
black, kidney-shaped, minutely dotted. Our figure shows it
magnified, as well as a flower.