Chenopodium vulvaria

Stems erect or ascending, branching from base, to 4 dm, white-mealy. Leaves strongly malodorous; petiole 0.8-0.9 cm; blade ovate or rhombic, 0.8-1.6 × 0.6-1.5 mm, base rounded to cuneate, margins entire, apex acute, densely mealy abaxially, glabrescent adaxially. Inflorescences small glomerules in terminal panicles and axillary spikes; glomerules subglobose, 0.4 mm; bracts absent. Flowers: perianth segments 5, connate into 0.5 mm tube; lobes deltate, 0.5-0.7 × 0.6-0.7 mm, apex acuminate, rounded abaxially, farinose, covering fruit at maturity; stamens 5; stigmas 2, 0.2 mm. Achenes depressed-ovoid; pericarp adherent, smooth. Seeds lenticular, oval, 0.9-1.2 mm diam.; seed coat black, smooth. 2n = 18.

Fruiting fall. Disturbed, weedy areas; 100-800 m; introduced; Calif., Del., Fla., Ind., Md., Mich., Mo, N.Y., Pa.

Fetid annual, strongly white-mealy, erect or ascending, 1-5 dm, widely branched from the base; lvs broadly ovate, 1-3 cm and about as wide, entire, rounded or broadly cuneate to the petiole, densely white-mealy beneath, glabrescent above; infls few, of small glomerules in compact leafy spikes, chiefly from the upper axils; sep 5, white-mealy, rounded on the back; seeds horizontal, dull black, thick-lenticular, loose in the pericarp, 1 mm wide; 2n=18. Native of Eurasia, found here and there in our range as a weed.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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