Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Caryophyllales > Amaranthaceae > Chenopodium > Chenopodium pratericola

Chenopodium pratericola (desert goosefoot)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Chenopodium pratericola is a species of flowering plant in the goosefoot family known by the common name desert goosefoot. It is native to much of western and central North America, where it grows in many types of open habitat, such as sagebrush, often on alkaline soils.
View Wikipedia Record: Chenopodium pratericola

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  High
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [2]  The leaves and seeds of all members of this genus are more or less edible. However, many of the species in this genus contain saponins, though usually in quantities too small to do any harm. Although toxic, saponins are poorly absorbed by the body and most pass straight through without any problem. They are also broken down to a large extent in the cooking process. Saponins are found in many foods, such as some beans. Saponins are much more toxic to some creatures, such as fish, and hunting tribes have traditionally put large quantities of them in streams, lakes etc in order to stupefy or kill the fish; The plants also contain some oxalic acid, which in large quantities can lock up some of the nutrients in the food. However, even considering this, they are very nutritious vegetables in reasonable quantities. Cooking the plants will reduce their content of oxalic acid. People with a tendency to rheumatism, arthritis, gout, kidney stones or hyperacidity should take especial caution if including this plant in their diet since it can aggravate their condition;
Lifespan [2]  Annual
Pollinators [2]  Wind
Structure [3]  Herb
Usage [2]  Gold/green dyes can be obtained from the whole plant;
Height [2]  39 inches (1 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Chenopodium pratericola

Protected Areas

Predators

Eupithecia sinuosaria (Goosefoot Pug)[4]
Pelurga comitata (Dark Spinach)[4]

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
4HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0