Chenopodium album
complex
(C. Album)
Lamb's-Quarters
Branch Inflorescence
Regina
17-July-2002
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 plant depicted here is C. Album.
Flora of Alberta distinguishes C.
berlandieri from C. album according to:
 |
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 |
|
|
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 |
|
| 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 |
| perianth segments greenish |
|