Chenopodium rubrum (Red Goosefoot) - photos and description

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 
Flower about 2 mm diameter

 

 
Plant with prostrate growth habit, growing on alkali soil

General: Annual plants with stems either solitary or branched from the base. Foliage rubbery, often reddish in colour. Plants glabrous.

Flowers: Inflorescence is glomerules in leafy panicles, glomerules often reddish. Flowers very small measured at 2 mm diameter, having 5 stamens.

Leaves: Leaves alternate, lanceolate, wavy-margined / sinuate, thick and rubbery to touch. Leaves measured to almost 1 mm thick. The leaf highlighted in the photo above had a blade which was 60 mm long by 35 mm wide.

Height: Height listed in Budd's Flora to 75 cm, we measured plants to 92 cm tall.

Habitat: Saline, moist soil.

Abundance: Common.

Origin: Native.

How to identify this species of Chenopodium: Leaves variable, about 1 mm thick, plants glabrous, Taxonomic Reminder for Recognizing Saskatchewan Plants.

When and where photographed: Photos taken August 21st, highway ditch with bare soil, about 175 km southeast of Regina, SK, and saline soil near the north end of Last Mountain Lake, about 175 km north of our home in Regina, SK.