CHENOPODIUM.] CHENOPODIACE&. 23 



A very common weed throughout the area especially in cultivated 

 ground and in waste places, very variable. DISTRIB.: 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 tinning 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 foetid herb. Stem C-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). DISTRIB.:. 

 Punjab Plain (Edgeworth, etc.), and on the Himalaya in Kumaon 

 and Nepal ; Western and S. 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. Flowers minute,, 

 axillary, solitary or in clusters, 2 -sexual and female, rarely only 

 male, ebracteate. Perianth subglobose ; lobes 5, coriaceous, in- 

 curved arid 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. Fruits, depressed membranous utricle. Seed ovoid or 



