Common Name: GOOSEFOOT FAMILY Habit: Annual to shrub; hairs simple, stellate, or glandular; plants in several genera scaly, mealy, or powdery from collapsed glands; monoecious, dioecious, with bisexual flowers, or with both bisexual and unisexual flowers. Stem: occasionally fleshy. Leaf: blade simple, generally alternate, occasionally fleshy or reduced to scales, veins pinnate; stipules 0. Inflorescence: raceme, spike, catkin-like, spheric head, axillary clusters of flowers, or flowers 1; bracts 0--5, herbaceous, generally persistent or strongly modified in fruit, wings, tubercles or spines present or 0. Flower: bisexual or unisexual, small, generally green; calyx parts (1)3--5, or 0 in pistillate flowers, free or fused basally (or +- throughout), leaf-like in texture, membranous, or fleshy, deciduous or not, often strongly modified in fruit; corolla 0; stamens 1--5, opposite sepals, filaments free, equal; anthers 4-chambered; ovary superior (1/2-inferior), chamber 1; ovule 1; styles, stigmas 1--4 (or stigmas sessile). Fruit: achene or utricle, generally falling with persistent calyx or bracts. Seed: 1, small, lenticular to spheric; seed coat smooth to finely dotted, warty, net-like, or prickly, margin occasionally winged. Genera In Family: 100 genera, 1500 species: worldwide, especially deserts, saline or alkaline soils; some cultivated for food (Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris, beet, Swiss chard; Spinacia oleracea L., spinach; Chenopodium quinoa Willd., quinoa); and some worldwide, naturalized ruderal or noxious agricultural weeds. Note:Nitrophila treated in Amaranthaceae, Sarcobatus treated in Sarcobataceae. Key to genera revised by Elizabeth H. Zacharias to incorporate Extriplex and Stutzia, 2 genera segregated from Atriplex. Native spp. of Kochia now treated in Neokochia. Chenopodiaceae often treated now within a more broadly circumscribed Amaranthaceae (Morales-Briones et al. 2021). eFlora Treatment Author: Mihai Costea, family description, key to genera, revised by Thomas J. Rosatti & Elizabeth H. Zacharias, except as noted Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin, David J. Keil, Thomas J. Rosatti, Margriet Wetherwax.
Habit: Perennial herb to subshrub, generally erect, glabrous to tomentose. Leaf: alternate or lower +- opposite, +- thread-like to linear, flat to cylindric, fleshy or not, sessile, vein 1 or obscure. Inflorescence: spikes, simple or branched; bracts leaf-like or scale-like; flowers 1--3(5) per axil. Flower: bisexual or pistillate, sessile; calyx lobes 5, incurved, keeled, densely hairy; tubercled, winged in fruit; stamens 5; stigmas 2--3. Fruit: +- compressed-spheric. Seed: horizontal. Etymology: (Wilhelm D. Koch, German physician, botanist, 1771--1849) Note: Native species of Kochia recently treated in Neokochia (Chu & Sanderson 2008), Kochia scoparia in Bassia. eFlora Treatment Author: G. Frederic Hrusa & Dieter H. Wilken Reference: Chu & Sanderson 2008 Madroño 55:251--256
Neokochia californica (S. Watson) G.L. Chu & S.C. Sand.
NATIVE Habit: Perennial herb or subshrub, 20--60 cm, root-sprouting. Stem: 1--few from base, erect, generally branched throughout, densely gray- or brown-puberulent to long-spreading-hairy. Leaf: 3--12 mm, 1--3 mm wide, generally well spaced, generally flat, +- fleshy, +- appressed silky-hairy; vein obscure or 1. Inflorescence: flowers 1--2(5) per axil, bracts generally spreading. Flower: calyx lobes densely short-hairy, wings in fruit +- 1--2 mm. Fruit: < 3 mm wide. Ecology: Alkaline soils, flats; Elevation: < 1000 m. Bioregional Distribution: s SnJV, DMoj; Distribution Outside California: southern Nevada. Flowering Time: May--Sep Unabridged Synonyms: Kochia californica S. Watson; Kochia americana var. californica (S. Watson) M.E. Jones Jepson eFlora Author: G. Frederic Hrusa & Dieter H. Wilken Reference: Chu & Sanderson 2008 Madroño 55:251--256 Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange) Previous taxon: Neokochia americana Next taxon: Salicornia
Botanical illustration including Neokochia californica
Citation for this treatment: G. Frederic Hrusa & Dieter H. Wilken 2022, Neokochia californica, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, Revision 11, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=102842, accessed on January 25, 2025.
Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2025, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on January 25, 2025.
No expert verified images found for Neokochia californica.
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