Chiefly herbs, of homely aspect, more or less succulent, with mostly alternate leaves and no stipules nor scarious bracts, minute greenish flowers, with the free calyx imbricated in the bud; the stamens as many as its lobes, or occasionally fewer, and inserted opposite them or on their base; the 1-celled ovary becoming a 1-seeded thin utricle or rarely an achene. Embryo coiled into a ring around the mealy albumen, when there is any, or else conduplicate, or spiral.—Calyx persistent, mostly enclosing the fruit. Styles or stigmas 2, rarely 3–5. (Mostly inert or innocent, weedy plants; several are pot-herbs, such as Spinach and Beet.)
[*] Embryo coiled into a ring about usually copious central albumen. Leaves flat, not spiny. Stem not jointed.
[+] Flowers perfect (or stamens only occasionally wanting), clustered or panicled; calyx obvious, persistent. Seed-coat crustaceous.
1. Cycloloma. Calyx 5-cleft, in fruit surrounded by a horizontal continuous membranaceous wing. Seed horizontal, crustaceous. Leaves sinuate-toothed.
2. Kochia. Like n. 1, but wing 5-lobed and seed-coat membranaceous. Leaves entire.
3. Chenopodium. Calyx 3–5-parted, unchanged or becoming fleshy in fruit.
4. Roubieva. Calyx 3–5-toothed, becoming saccate. Leaves pinnatifid.
[+][+] Flowers monœcious or diœcious; the staminate in clusters, mostly spiked; the pistillate without calyx, enclosed between a pair of appressed axillary bracts.
5. Atriplex. Fruiting bracts with margins often dilated and sides often muricate.
[+][+][+] Flowers perfect, naked or 1-sepaled, solitary in the axils of the reduced upper leaves.