Weeds
Chenopodium rubrum L. - Red Goosefoot.
Systematic position.
Family Chenopodiaceae Vent., genus Chenopodium L.Synonyms.
Blitum rubrum C.A.Mey.Biological group.
Annual weed.Morphology and biology.
Plant to 100 cm high, with erect hairless reddish stems and with prostrate ascending lower branches. Leaves large, fleshy, variform, oblong-ovate to ovate-triangular, wedge-shaped at base, irregularly dentate-sinuate at margin; upper leaves linear-lanceolate, usually entire, long-petiolate. Flowers bisexual, gathered in glomerules, forming more or less dense spike-shaped inflorescences. Terminal flowers with 4-5-partite perianth, other flowers with 2-3-partite perianth. Perianthal lobes herbaceous, usually reddish. Fruits with partite pericarp, horizontal (terminal) or vertical (others). Seeds small (not more than 1 mm in diameter), roundish, bright, reddish-brown, with obtuse edge. One plant forms 3,000 seeds. Weight of 1,000 seeds is 0.09 g. Flowering period is July-September.Distribution.
All Europe, Asia Minor, North China, Mongolia, North America; European part of the former USSR except Arctic zone, Crimea, the Caucasus, Western and Eastern Siberia, Central Asia.Ecology.
Grows on moist, often salty soils.Economic significance.
Weed of wheat, barley, cotton, tilled crops, alfalfa; occurs in waste lands, orchards, kitchen gardens, along roads, near habitations. Control measures include correct crop rotations, mowing in waste lands, stubbling, under-winter plowing, presowing soil cultivation, chemical weeding.Related references:
Gubanov I.A., Kiseleva K.V., Novikov V.S., Tikhomirov V.N. 2003. Illustrated keys to plants of Middle Russia. V.2. Moscow: Association of scientific editions KMK, 702 p. (in Russian).Keller B.A., Lyubimenko V.N., Maltsev A.I., Fedtshenko B.A., Shishkin B.K., Rodzevich R.Yu., Kamenskii K.V., eds. 1934. Weed plants of the USSR. V. 2. Leningrad: AN USSR, 244 p. (in Russian).
Nikitin V.V. 1983. Weed plants of the USSR flora. Leningrad: Nauka, 454 p. (in Russian).
Shishkin B.K. ed. 1936. Flora of the USSR. V. 6. Moscow-Leningrad: AN SSSR, 956 p. (in Russian).
Shishkin B.K., ed. 1963. Botanical atlas. Moscow-Leningrad: Izd-vo sel'skokhozyaistvennoi literatury, zhurnalov i plakatov, 504 p. (in Russian).