Arenaria congesta

Chenopodium album complex
(C. Album)

Lamb's-Quarters

G. F. Ledingham Herbarium

The Flora of Canada describes a Chenopodium album complex containing six "microspecies", with C. album as the type. One of these microspecies, C. berlandieri = C. dacoticum, is considered a separate species by Flora of Alberta. The plants depicted here are C. Album.

Flora of Alberta distinguishes C. berlandieri from C. album according to:

Album Characteristics

taller plant, without marked odour

leaves green above, mealy beneath

blades ovate to lanceolate, usually with several teeth along each side

seeds not pitted

Berlandieri Characteristic

low plant with an offensive odour

leaves yellowish green, densely white-mealy

blades ovate to rhombic, entire or sinuate

seeds pitted

The rest of the points in the keys leading to Chenopodium album are as follows:

Album Characteristics

leaves small, linear to ovate, entire or with small teeth or lobes; NOT large, broadly ovate, with 2 or 3 large triangular lobes or teeth on each side

flower clusters both terminal and axillary

upper clusters of flowers longer than the leaves

calyx not fleshy even in fruit

calyx usually greenish; NOT bright red and strawberry-like

calyx lobes keeled

stamens 5

pericarp rather firmly attached to the seeds

seeds horizontal in the pericarps

seeds 1-1.5 mm wide

Chenopodium Characteristics

herbs or low spineless shrubs

stems scarcely fleshy, not jointed

plants neither spiny nor with spine-tipped leaves

plants may be glabrous, scurfy or pubescent; but NOT with long, soft hairs

leaves slender, elongate, mostly alternate; NOT scale-like, opposite

leaves alternate

leaves not circular in cross section

leaves not fleshy, sometimes linear but usually wider, flat, often toothed or lobed, usually scurfy or pubescent

flowers not sunk into a fleshy stem

no flowers with enclosing bracts

fruiting calyx not developing horizontal scarious wings

calyx lobes not forming slender hooked spines, but may be horned or narrowly winged

calyx with 3-5 sepals

flowers perfect

stamens usually over 3

embryo annular

fruit largely included in the calyx lobes

Chenopodiaceae Characteristics
(Not all these points apply to all genera in Chenopodiaceae, but they all do apply to genus Chenopodium.)

herbs

plants terrestrial, but sometimes growing in marshy places

plants not parasitic on trees, rooted in soil or water

plants with stems or stemless, but with more than one pair of leaves

leaves alternate, lower ones sometimes opposite

leaves without stipules

leaves not compound and not very deeply divided

leaves not orbicular or reniform

flowers small, numerous, greenish

flowers not subtended by scarious bracts

plants mostly with perfect flowers and these not in catkins (often in dense clusters)

flowers with only one floral ring, with sepals but not petals

perianth segments greenish

perianth segments 2-5

sepals herbaceous or fleshy

ovary superior

flower hypogynous

styles 2-3 or of 2-3 branches

pistil solitary, simple or compound

ovary and capsule 1-loculed

ovary or its locules with only 1 or 2 ovules

fruit dry when ripe