Chenopodium

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"Goosefoot" redirects here. The unrelated Smearwort (Aristolochia rotunda) is sometimes called "Mercury Goosefoot".
Goosefoots, genus Chenopodium
Fat Hen (Chenopodium album)
Fat Hen (Chenopodium album)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Amaranthaceae
Genus: Chenopodium
species

See text

Chenopodium is a genus of about 150 species of flowering plants, known generically as the Goosefoots. It contains several plants of minor to moderate importance as food crops, both leaf vegetables and pseudo-cereals, including Quinoa, Kañiwa, Fat Hen, Good King Henry, and Epazote. Goosefoots are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species; see list of Lepidoptera that feed on Chenopodium.

In the APG II system (2003) it is placed in the family Amaranthaceae, but earlier, for example in the Cronquist system (1981), it was placed in the family Chenopodiaceae.

In some parts of northern India, the leaves (also known as bathua or chandaliya or chandali) are used for culinary purposes

[edit] Selected species