''Chenopodium leptophyllum'' is a species of flowering plant in the family

Amaranthaceae Amaranthaceae is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus ''Amaranthus''. It includes the former goosefoot family Chenopodiaceae and contains about 165 genera and 2,040 species, making it ...

known by the common name narrowleaf goosefoot. It is native to much of western North America, where it is reported from

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

and northern Mexico, and into central Canada. It can be found in many types of open habitat, often in sandy and gravelly soils, and it grows easily in disturbed areas such as roadsides.

Description

It is an erect or mostly erect annual herb approaching 40 to 60 centimeters in maximum height. It is powdery in texture, especially on the undersides of the leaves. The thin, dusty leaf is linear to narrowly lance-shaped, smooth along the edges, and up to about 2.5 centimeters in length. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

s are located at the tips of branches and in the leaf axils. They are arrays of clusters of tightly packed, tiny flowers. Each flower has five lobes in its corolla.

Uses

Among the Zuni people, the young plants boiled alone or with meat and used for food. The ground seeds are mixed with corn meal and salt, made into a stiff batter, formed into balls and steamed. The seeds are to be considered among the most important food plants when the Zuni reached this world.Castetter, p.21

References

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentUSDA Plants ProfileFlora of North America
leptophyllum Flora of the Western United States Flora of the Canadian Prairies Flora of the United States Flora of the Rocky Mountains Flora of Ontario Flora of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Flora of the California desert regions Flora of New Jersey Plants used in Native American cuisine Flora of North America Flora without expected TNC conservation status {{Amaranthaceae-stub