Lamb’s-Quarters
Scientific Name: Chenopodium album L.
Other Names: chénopode blanc, Fat-hen, Pigweed, White goosefoot, White pigweed, chou gras, poulette grasse, ansérine blanche
Family: Goosefoot Family (Chenopodiaceae)
General Description: Annual, reproducing only by seed. Very variable in appearance.
Habitat: Lamb's-quarters is very widespread throughout Canada, occurring in cultivated fields, pastures, wasteland, roadsides, gardens and almost anywhere the soil is disturbed.
Seedlings
- Cotyledons are narrowly elliptic, 12- 15 mm (4- 6 in.) long, upper surface is dull green, maroon on the underside
- Mealy grey coating on young leaves
- First 2 or 4 true leaves apparently opposite (2 per node)
Stems
- 20- 200 cm (8 in.-6½ ft) high
- Branched or unbranched
- Smooth
- Green or with reddish or purplish lengthwise stripes and ridges
Leaves
- All later leaves and branches distinctly alternate (1 per node)
- Stalked
- Blades 3- 10 cm (1- 4 in.) long
- Lance-shaped or more often broadly triangular
- Irregular, usually shallow teeth
- Green or greyish due to a covering of a white mealiness or powderiness, sometimes with reddish undersurface on young plants
Flowers
- Very small
- Greenish
- Densely grouped together into small, thick, granular clusters along the main stem and upper branches
- 5 green sepals but no petals
- Seeds:
- Small
- Rounded in outline
- Somewhat flattened
- 1- 1.5 mm (1/25- 1/16 in.) in diameter
- Enclosed in a very thin, membranous, smooth, whitish covering (pericarp) which is readily fractured and lost when dry
- Small
- Flowers from June to August
Often Confused With
Pigweed Seedlings (Similar in habitat, often found growing together. At first leaf stage, lamb’s quarters has opposite leaves, pigweed’s are alternate)