Arenaria congesta

Chenopodium album complex
(C. Album)

Lamb's-Quarters

Leaf Bottom
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 green above, mealy beneath

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

Berlandieri Characteristic

leaves yellowish green, densely white-mealy

blades ovate to rhombic, entire or sinuate

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

Chenopodium Characteristics

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 not circular in cross section

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

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

leaves without stipules

leaves not compound and not very deeply divided

leaves not orbicular or reniform