CHENOPODIUM. } CHENOPODIACE. 23 
A very common weed throughout the area especially in cultivated 
ground and in waste places, very variable. Dustrrs.: Plains of 
Punjab and Bengal, extending to S. India; also en the Himalaya 
from Kashmir to Sikkim up to 12,000 ft., and to still higher elevations 
in W. Tibet ; also on the Khasia Hills where it is cultivated. The 
plant is very rich in potash salts and the leaves are often eaten raw 
as a salad or cooked as a pot-herb, and on the W. Himalaya it is 
much grown for its grain. Baden-Powell mentions that in the 
Punjab this plant is sometimes used in cleaning copper vessels pre- 
paratory to tinmning them. In C. viride the leaves are narrower 
than in the type and almost entire, and the plant is much less 
mealy. 
2.C. murale, Linn. Sp. Pl. 219; F. B. I. v, 4; Watt E. D.; 
Cooke Fl. Bomb., ii. 501. 
A subglabrous rather feetid herb. Stem 6-15 in. high, branches erect of 
ascending. Leaves stalked, bright-green and somewhat shining, 1-3 
in. long, rhombic or deltoid-ovate, obtuse or acute, margins irre- 
gularly lobed and more or less sharply toothed, entire at the cuneate 
base. Flowers clustered in lax or dense cymes arranged in axillary 
racemes or panicles, the terminal leafless panicle much shorter than 
in C. album. Sepals ;*; in. long, oblong, subacute, closing over the 
utricle, slightly keeled. Stigmas 2. Seeds horizontal, orbicular, com- 
pressed, sharply keeled, dull-black, rugose. 
Upper Gangetic Plain (T. Thomson), N. W. India (Royle). DisrTR1.: 
Punjab Plain (Edgeworth, etc.), and on the Himalaya in Kumaon 
and Nepal ; Western and 8. India, but Cooke says ‘‘ scarcely indi- 
genous in the Bombay Presidency ”’; also in Ceylon, extending to 
W. Asia, N. Africa and Europe, but introduced in N. America. 
The plant is used as a pot-herb in the Punjab. 
2. KOCHIA, Roth; Fl. Brit. Ind. v, 10. 
Herbs or undershrubs, usually villous or pubescent. Stem 
slender. Leaves alternate, sessile, narrow, entire. J lowers minute, 
axillary, solitary or in clusters, 2-sexual and female, rarely only 
male, ebracteate. Perianth subglobose ; lobes 5, coriaceous, in- 
curved and ultimately closing over the utricle, girt by 5 free or 
confluent wings. Stamens 5, usually exserted; anthers large, 
ovate. Ovary depressed-globose ; style slender, stigmas 2 or 3, 
capillary. Fruita depressed membranous utricle. Seed ovoid or 
