Chenopodium anthelminticum. 185 
of the same genus,* and has been confounded, especially with one, 
the Chenopodium ambrosioides, from which it is dificult for com- 
mon observers to distinguish it. The root of Jerusalem oak is pe- 
rennial. The stem is herbaceous, upright, very much branched, 
deeply grooved, and from two to four, or five feet high. It is said 
by some to exceed this stature, though it has not happened to me to 
meet with it more than three feet high. The leaves are arranged 
alternately, and somewhat irregularly; are sessile, very conspicuously 
veined, of a yellowish-green colour; and, under a lens, covered on 
their under surface, with terebinthinate globular dots. The flowers, 
as in most of the species, are very small and numerous, being borne 
on long, axillary, dense, leafless spikes. One ofthe principal charac- 
teristics of this plant is discoverable in this leafless structure of the 
spikes; and in this respect it differs remarkably from the C. ambro- 
sioides, with which it is so frequently confounded. The calix is mo- 
nophyllous, five-cleft, persistent, shewing the stamens conspicuously 
beyond the extremities of the teeth. Filaments white, anthers yel- 
lowish-white. Style trifid. The flowers of this plant appear in the 
beginning of July, and continue till the last of August. I have, how- 
ever, sometimes found flowering specimens as late as September. 
Its favourite haunts are in loose soils, near rubbish and fences. It 
is, however, notso common a plant as either of the other species, in 
the middle and northern states. To the south it appears to be fre- 
* Chenopodium is derived from x», (nves,) and meus, (wedes.) Anserine derived from 
anser, a goose; hence the name goose-foot. 
VOL. I. 25 
