Tetragonia expansa.
This plant, botanically considered, is quite distinct from the common garden Spinach; varying essentially in its foliage, flowers, seeds, and general habit.
It is a hardy annual. The leaves are of a fine green color, large and broad, and remarkably thick and fleshy; the branches are numerous, round, succulent, pale-green, thick and strong,—the stalks recline upon the ground for a large proportion of their length, but are erect at the extremities; the flowers are produced in the axils of the leaves, are small, green, and, except that they show their yellow anthers when they expand, are quite inconspicuous; the fruit is of a dingy-brown color, three-eighths of an inch deep, three-eighths of an inch in diameter at the top or broadest part, hard and wood-like in texture, rude in form, but somewhat urn-shaped, with four or five horn-like points at the top. Three hundred and twenty-five of these fruits are contained in an ounce; and they are generally sold and recognized as the seeds. They are, however, really the fruit; six or eight of the true seeds being contained in each. They retain their germinative powers five years.
Propagation and Culture.—It is always raised from seed, which may be sown in the open ground from April to July. Select a rich, moist soil, pulverize it well, and rake the surface smooth. Make the drills three feet apart, and an inch and a half or two inches deep; and sow the seed thinly, or so as to secure a plant for each foot of row. In five or six weeks from the planting, the branches will have grown sufficiently to allow the gathering of the leaves for use. If the season should be very dry, the plants will require watering. They grow vigorously, and, in good soil, will extend, before the end of the season, three feet in each direction.
Gathering.—"The young leaves must be pinched or cut from the branches; taking care not to injure the ends, or leading shoots. These shoots, with the smaller ones that will spring out of the stalks at the points where the leaves have been gathered, will produce a supply until a late period in the season; for the plants are sufficiently hardy to withstand the effects of light frosts without essential injury.
"Its superiority over the Common Spinach consists in the fact, that it grows luxuriantly, and produces leaves of the greatest succulency, in the hottest weather."
Anderson, one of its first cultivators, had but nine plants, which furnished a gathering for the table every other day from the middle of June. A bed of a dozen healthy plants will afford a daily supply for the table of a large family.
Seed.—To raise seed, leave two or three plants in the poorest soil of the garden, without cutting the leaves. The seeds will ripen successively, and should be gathered as they mature.
Use.—It is cooked and served in the same manner as Common Spinach.
There are no described varieties.