50 FARM WEEDS OF CANADA 



THE SPINACH OR GOOSEFOOT FAMILY 



{Chenopodiaceae) . 



The Spinach family is widely distributed and contains some 

 field crops and other valuable plants, as spinach and beetroot, 

 as well as many troublesome weed pests. The plants adapt 

 themselves to a variety of soils; they seem to thrive best on deep, 

 rich, loamy land well supplied with mineral constituents. 



They are more or less succulent herbs, mostly of erect 

 habits of growth, with alternate leaves devoid of the rough ap- 

 pendages at the base of the leaf stalks, as are found in the Buck- 

 wheat family. The flowers are very small, generally green, 

 and borne in clusters at the axils of the leaves, each flower pro- 

 ducing a single seed. 



The seeds, which are produced in enormous numbers, are 

 enclosed in bladder-like envelopes called "utricles." The most 

 important genera are : Chenopodium, Atriplex and Salsola. 



LAMB'S QUARTERS {Chenopodium album L.). 



Other English names: Pigweed, Fat-hen, White Goosefoot. 



Introduced from Europe and native. Annual. Extremely 

 variable in every character. Mostly tall, succulent and herba- 

 ceous, with a slender, erect, grooved, much-branched stem, 

 2 to 6 feet high, with angular-ovate, pale green, coarsely toothed 

 leaves, narrowed at the base and borne on slender footstalks. 

 Flowers in compound spikes from the axils of the leaves. The 

 whole plant of a more or less white or pinkish mealy appearance. 

 Plants late in the season are a much darker green and have less 

 angled leaves. 



The seed (plate 72, fig. 12) is about 1/20 of an inch in dia- 

 meter, circular in outline, more or less flattened on one side, 

 strongly convex on the other, edges bluntly rounded, the lower 



