Crested Goosefoot

Stems prostrate, branched, 3-5 dm, pilose and glandular-pilose, or with sessile glands. Leaves aromatic; petiole 0.7-1 cm; blade ovate or elliptic, 1.3-2.1 × 1.1-1.5 cm, reduced somewhat in inflorescence, base cuneate, apex obtuse, glandular-pubescent. Inflorescences axillary glomerules; glomerules subglobose, 4-6 mm diam.; bracts similar to cauline leaves, elliptic, reduced to 0.8 mm, margins crenate-dentate, apex obtuse. Flowers: perianth segments 5, distinct nearly to base, distinct portions elliptic to oblong, strongly keeled, 1.8-1.9 × 0.3-0.5 mm, apex acuminate, fimbriate and hirsute, pubescent with septate hairs, hardly enclosing fruit, becoming white, strongly crested and 5-winged vertically, rostrate, semiorbiculate, and cartilaginous in fruit; stamen 1; stigmas 2. Achenes ovoid; pericarp adherent, membranaceous, slightly rugose and papillate. Seeds reddish brown, ovoid, 0.6-0.7 × 0.5-0.6 mm, margins slightly keeled over radicle and grooved over cotyledons; seed coat smooth.

introduced; S.C.; Australia.

Fruiting summer.

Wool waste areas; 10m.

Blitum cristatum F. Mueller, Trans. Philos. Inst. Victoria 2: 73. 1858