Chenopodium glaucum L.
glaucous goosefoot
Prostrate or semi-prostrate annual herb, with young parts farinose, often reddish or purplish, sometimes green. Stems to 20-(30) cm long, slender, branched. Petioles 5-15-(18) mm long. Lamina 3-20-(55) × 2-18-(60) mm (including basal lobes), rhombic-ovate, narrow-elliptic, ± succulent, becoming efarinose and green or reddish above, nearly always glaucous-white-farinose beneath, entire, with few dentate teeth or sometimes basally lobed on each side; base cuneate. Glomerules few-flowered, axillary and terminal, sometimes spike-like, otherwise leafy to apex. Perianth segments 3-4-(5), broadly ovate, generally reddish except for margin, green or brownish at fruiting, membranous, not very accrescent, scarcely investing fr. Seed mostly horizontal, (0.8)-1-1.3-(1.6) mm diam., circular, compressed; margin obtuse; pericarp easily removed; testa glossy black, finely striated.
N.; S.; St.: coastal, also saline areas of C. Otago.
N.Z. subsp. also indigenous to temperate Australia and Easter Id.
Salt marshes, mudflats, coastal sands, often very common.
FL Dec-May.
N.Z. plants are referable to subsp. ambiguum (R. Br.) Thell. sometimes accorded specific rank as C. ambiguum R. Br.
