Chenopodium


Chenopodium is a genus of numerous species of perennial or annual herbaceous flowering plants known as the goosefoots, which occur almost anywhere in the world. It is placed in the family Amaranthaceae in the APG II system; older classification systems, notably the widely used Cronquist system, separate it and its relatives as Chenopodiaceae, but this leaves the rest of the Amaranthaceae polyphyletic. However, among the Amaranthaceae, the genus Chenopodium is the namesake member of the subfamily Chenopodioideae.
In Australia, the larger Chenopodium species are among the plants called "bluebushes". Chualar in California is named after a Native American term for a goosefoot abundant in the region, probably the California goosefoot.

Description

The species of Chenopodium are annual or perennial herbs, shrubs or small trees. They are nonaromatic, but sometimes fetid. The young stems and leaves are often densely covered by vesicular globose hairs, thus looking farinose. Characteristically, these trichomes persist, collapsing later and becoming cup-shaped.
The branched stems grow erect, ascending, prostrate or scrambling. Lateral branches are alternate. The alternate or opposite leaves are petiolate. Their thin or slightly fleshy leaf blade is linear, rhombic or triangular-hastate, with entire or dentate or lobed margins.
Inflorescences are standing terminal and lateral. They consist of spicately or paniculately arranged glomerules of flowers. Plants are monoecious. In monoecious plants flowers
are dimorphic or pistillate. Flowers consist of 5 perianth segments connate.
basally or close to the middle, usually membranous margined and with a roundish to keeled back; almost always 5 stamens, and one ovary with 2 stigmas.
In fruit, perianth segments become sometimes coloured, but mostly keep unchanged, somewhat closing over or spreading from the fruit. Pericarp membranous or sometimes succulent, adherent to or loosely covering the
seed. The horizontally oriented seeds are depressed-globular to lenticular, with rounded to subacute margin. The black seed coat is almost smooth to finely striate, rugulose or pitted.

Uses and human importance

The genus Chenopodium contains several plants of minor to moderate importance as food crops as leaf vegetables - used like the closely related spinach and similar plants called quelite in Mexico - and pseudocereals. These include white goosefoot, kañiwa and quinoa. On the Greek island of Crete, tender shoots and leaves of a species called krouvida or psarovlito are eaten by the locals, boiled or steamed. As studied by Bruce D. Smith, Kristen Gremillion and others, goosefoots have a history of culinary use dating back to 4000 BC or earlier, when pitseed goosefoot was a staple crop in the Native American eastern agricultural complex, and white goosefoot was apparently used by the Ertebølle culture of Europe. Members of the eastern Yamnaya culture also harvested white goosefoot as an apparent cereal substitute to round out an otherwise mostly meat and dairy diet c. 3500–2500 BCE.
There is increased interest in particular in goosefoot seeds today, which are suitable as part of a gluten-free diet. Quinoa oil, extracted from the seeds of C. quinoa, has similar properties, but is superior in quality, to corn oil. Oil of chenopodium is extracted from the seeds of epazote, which is not in this genus anymore. Shagreen leather was produced in the past using the small, hard goosefoot seeds. C. album was one of the main model organisms for the molecular biological study of chlorophyllase.
Goosefoot pollen, in particular of the widespread and usually abundant C. album, is an allergen to many people and a common cause of hay fever. The same species, as well as some others, have seeds which are able to persist for years in the soil seed bank. Many goosefoot species are thus significant weeds, and some have become invasive species.
The 1889 book The Useful Native Plants of Australia records:

Ecology

Certain species grow in large thickets, providing cover for small animals. Goosefoot foliage is used as food by the caterpillars of certain Lepidoptera. The seeds are eaten by many birds, such as the yellowhammer of Europe or the white-winged fairy-wren of Australia. Goosefoot pathogens include the positive-sense ssRNA viruses - apple stem grooving virus, sowbane mosaic virus and tobacco necrosis virus.

Systematics

The genus Chenopodium was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. Type species is Chenopodium album. This generic name is derived from the particular shape of the leaf, which is similar to a goose's foot: from Greek χήν, "goose" and πούς, "foot" or ποδίον, "little foot".
In its traditional circumscription, Chenopodium comprised about 170 species. Phylogenetic research revealed, that the genus was highly polyphyletic and did not reflect how species were naturally related. Therefore, a new classification was necessary. Mosyakin & Clemants separated the glandular species as genus Dysphania and Teloxys in tribe Dysphanieae. Fuentes-Bazan et al. separated many species to genera Blitum, Chenopodiastrum, Lipandra, and Oxybasis. They included Rhagodia and Einadia in Chenopodium.

Selected species


  • Chenopodium acicularis
  • Chenopodium acuminatum Willd.
  • Chenopodium albescens
  • Chenopodium album - white goosefoot, nickel greens, dungweed, bathua, chandali, chandaliya, fat hen, lamb's quarters, pigweed
  • * Chenopodium album ssp. amaranticolor
  • Chenopodium allanii
  • Chenopodium arizonicum - Arizona goosefoot
  • Chenopodium atrovirens - dark goosefoot, pinyon goosefoot
  • Chenopodium aureum - golden goosefoot
  • Chenopodium auricomiforme
  • Chenopodium auricomum - Queensland bluebush
  • Chenopodium baccatum
  • Chenopodium benthamii
  • Chenopodium berlandieri - pitseed goosefoot, southern huauzontle, lambsquarters
  • * Chenopodium berlandieri ssp. nuttalliae H.D.Wilson & Heiser
  • * Chenopodium berlandieri var. bushianum
  • * Chenopodium berlandieri var. zschackii
  • Chenopodium brandegeeae - Brandegee's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium bryoniifolium Bunge – Korean goosefoot
  • Chenopodium bushianum - village goosefoot
  • Chenopodium candolleanum
  • Chenopodium curvispicatum
  • Chenopodium cycloides - sandhill goosefoot
  • Chenopodium desertorum - desert goosefoot
  • * Chenopodium desertorum ssp. anidiophyllum
  • * Chenopodium desertorum ssp. desertorum
  • * Chenopodium desertorum ssp. microphyllum
  • * Chenopodium desertorum ssp. rectum
  • * Chenopodium desertorum ssp. virosum
  • Chenopodium desiccatum - narrowleaf goosefoot
  • Chenopodium detestans - New Zealand fish-guts plant
  • Chenopodium drummondii
  • Chenopodium eastwoodiae - Eastwood's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium eremaea
  • Chenopodium erosum R.Br.
  • Chenopodium ficifolium - fig-leaved goosefoot, small goosefoot
  • Chenopodium flabellifolium - San Martin Island goosefoot, flabelliform goosefoot
  • Chenopodium foggii - Fogg's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium formosanum - red quinoa, djulis
  • Chenopodium fremontii - Fremont's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium giganteum D.Don - tree spinach
  • Chenopodium gigantospermum
  • Chenopodium hians
  • Chenopodium howellii - Howell's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium iljinii
  • Chenopodium incanum - mealy goosefoot
  • Chenopodium incognitum
  • Chenopodium lenticulare
  • Chenopodium leptophyllum - narrowleaf goosefoot
  • Chenopodium lineatum - Mono goosefoot
  • Chenopodium littoreum - coastal goosefoot
  • Chenopodium luteum - yellow goosefoot
  • Chenopodium missouriense - Missouri goosefoot
  • Chenopodium neomexicanum - New Mexico goosefoot
  • Chenopodium nevadense - Nevada goosefoot
  • Chenopodium nitrariaceum F.Muell. ex Benth. - nitre goosefoot
  • Chenopodium nitens - shiny goosefoot
  • Chenopodium nutans
  • Chenopodium nuttalliae - huauzontle, chia roja, quelite
  • Chenopodium oahuense - Āheahea
  • Chenopodium obscurum
  • Chenopodium opulifolium Schrad. ex W.D.J.Koch - grey goosefoot
  • Chenopodium pallescens - pallid goosefoot
  • Chenopodium pallidicaule - kañiwa, "cañahua"
  • Chenopodium palmeri - Palmer's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium pamiricum
  • Chenopodium parabolicum
  • Chenopodium parryi - Parry's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium petiolare
  • Chenopodium polygonoides
  • Chenopodium pratericola Rydb. - pale goosefoot, desert goosefoot, narrowleaf goosefoot
  • Chenopodium preissii
  • Chenopodium probstii Aellen
  • Chenopodium purpurascens - purple goosefoot
  • Chenopodium quinoa - quinoa
  • Chenopodium retusum
  • Chenopodium robertianum
  • Chenopodium salinum - Rocky Mountain goosefoot
  • Chenopodium sandersii - Sander's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium simpsonii - Simpson's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium sonorense - Sonoran goosefoot
  • Chenopodium spinescens
  • Chenopodium standleyanum - Standley's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium strictum Roth
  • Chenopodium subglabrum - smooth arid goosefoot, smooth goosefoot
  • Chenopodium suecicum - green goosefoot
  • Chenopodium triandrum
  • Chenopodium trigonon
  • Chenopodium truncatum
  • Chenopodium twisselmannii - Twisselmann's goosefoot, high meadow goosefoot
  • Chenopodium ulicinum
  • Chenopodium × variabile
  • Chenopodium vulvaria - stinking goosefoot, notchweed
  • Chenopodium wahlii - Wahl's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium watsonii - Watson's goosefoot
  • Chenopodium wilsonii

Excluded species

†Chenopodium wetzleri fossil seeds of the Chattian stage, Oligocene, are known from the Oberleichtersbach Formation in the Rhön Mountains, cental Germany.