Annual herb to 2 m tall Stem: white-mealy. Leaves: alternate, stalked, 2 - 6.5 cm long, broadly diamond-shaped or triangular, sometimes deeply toothed, lacking basal lobes, white-mealy. Inflorescence: a dense, irregularly rounded cluster of flowers (glomerule), which together form a large, drooping spike with leaf-like bracts. Flowers: greenish, small, with five nearly distinct sepals and no petals. Sepals often prominently keeled, white-mealy. Stamens five. Stigmas two. Fruit: one-seeded (achene or utricle), sometimes enclosed in the persistent, incurved sepals, blackish, depressed egg-shaped, thin-walled. Wall (pericarp) adherent or non-adherent to the seed, honeycomb-like. Seed brown, 1.5 - 2.3 mm wide, round, round-margined, honeycomb-like.
Similar species: No information at this time.
Flowering: late June to mid-October
Habitat and ecology: Introduced from Europe. A weed of cultivated and waste ground.
Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native
Etymology: Chenopodium comes from the Greek words chen, meaning goose, and podion, meaning "little foot," referring to the leaf shape of some species. Berlandieri is named after Jean Louis Berlandier (1805-1851), the botanist who discovered the species.