NEW-ZEALAND SPINACH. 



NEW-ZEALAND SPINACH.- Loud. 



Tetragonia expansa. 



This plant, botanically considered, is quite distinct from 

 the common garden Spinach ; varying essentially in its 

 foliage, flowers, seeds, and general habit. 



It is a hardy annual. The leaves are of a fine green 

 color, large and broad, and remarkably thick and fleshy ; 

 the flowers, which are produced in the axils of the leaves, 

 are quite inconspicuous ; the fruit is of a dingy-brown color, 

 three-eighths of an inch deep, three-eighths of an inch in 

 diameter at the top or broadest part, hard and wood-like in 

 texture, somewhat urn-shaped, with four or five horn- like 

 points at the top. Three hundred and twenty-five of these 

 fruits are contained in an ounce ; and they are generally 

 sold and recognized as the seeds. They are, however, 

 really the fruit, six or eight of the true seeds being con- 

 tained in each. They retain their germinative powers five 

 years. 



Propagation and Culture. It is always raised from seed, 

 which may be sown in the open ground from April to July. 

 Make the drills three feet apart, and an inch and a half or 

 two inches deep ; and sow the seed thinly, or so as to secure 

 a plant for each foot of row. In five or six weeks from the 

 planting, the branches will have grown sufficiently to allow 

 the gathering of the leaves for use. They grow vigorously, 

 and in good soil will extend, before the end of the season, 

 three feet in each direction. 



Gathering. The leaves, which are the parts of the plant 

 used, are gathered as they are developed, leaving the ends 

 of the young shoots uninjured. If not cut to excess, the 

 plants will yield abundantly till destroyed by frost. No one 

 of the family of spinaceous plants is more easily raised, 

 and few, if any, are more productive. 



