Greek chen—goose, podos—little foot, referring to the shape of the leaves in some species.
Annual or perennial herbs or small shrubs, hairless or with a silvery scurf. Leaves alternate, entire or dissected. Flowers clustered, bisexual or unisexual. Perianth of 3-5 parts, papery or fleshy in fruit. Stamens 1-5. Stigmas 2-3. Ovary superior. Fruit an achene.
C. bonus-henricus L., Good King Henry, a summer-flowering European perennial to 40 cm or so tall, is sometimes grown by herb nurseries and is used like spinach in salads, and the young shoots eaten like asparagus; it has arrow-shaped leaves that are mealy at first and with more or less entire margins.
C. giganteum D. Don from N India is an annual to several metres tall with reddish leaves and shoots; it is sometimes cultivated as a vegetable.
Seed.
Flowers with 3-5 segments; fruit dry.
About 150 species from temperate or subtropical, many weedy and invasive (23 species in Australia, 14 of which are endemic).
Source: (1997). Chenopodiaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
