LAMB'S-QUARTERS 



In general aspect the plant is quite unlike any of 

 its garden companions and this makes it easily dis- 

 tinguishable. In the first place the entire plant is 

 a pale gray-green; stalk, leaf, branch, and blossom, 

 all gray-green. In height it varies from two to six 

 feet, bears a central stalk which 

 branches freely and loosely, and its 

 leaves are borne sparingly. The 

 normal leaf is rhombic-ovate in 

 shape, usually three-veined, lobed 

 or sinuate and often white mealy 

 on the lower surface. The upper 

 leaves are often lanceolate and 

 sessile. 



In August the entire plant ap- 

 parently bursts into bloom and the 

 bloom is gray-green Hke the leaves, 

 a little paler possibly and to all 

 appearance consists of innumerable 

 tiny balls clustered in compound 

 spikes at the tip of the central stalk 

 and of the branches. Each of the 

 tiny ball-blossoms consists of a 

 green calyx, often ridged, a few 

 stamens, and a pistil which, when 

 mature, becomes a utricle, that is, a minute green bag 

 which encloses a black shining disk of a seed. Each 

 average plant w^ill mature many hundreds of seeds, 

 which are so generally scattered throughout the 

 upper layer of garden soil that the astonishing thing is 

 not that there are so many seedlings but that there are 

 so few. In autumn the green stem reddens, the leaves 

 become red and yellow, and the stalk at length withers. 



45 



Lamb's-Quarters. Cheno 

 pddium album 



