Chenopodium incanum var. occidentale

Mealy goosefoot

Family: Chenopodiaceae · Type: annual · Native

Mealy goosefoot is a California native annual found in the eastern Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions in open sandy or gravelly places at elevations of 700 to 2,300 meters. Flowering from April to August, this plant produces small green flowers in widely spaced axillary and terminal panicle clusters. Growing with erect or spreading stems 8 to 60 centimeters tall, it develops a distinctive triangular-diamond-shaped to ovate leaf structure with two-lobed bases. Its leaves are moderately powdery, measuring 6 to 18 millimeters long, with a tapered base and acute or rounded tip that appears whitish-gray due to fine powdery coating. The small fruits are approximately 1 to 1.2 millimeters in diameter, containing horizontal black seeds with obtuse margins.

Habitat: Open places, sandy or gravelly soils

Bloom period: Apr-Aug

Elevation: 700-2300 m

Bioregions: SNH (e slope), GB, DMoj

California counties: San Bernardino, Inyo, Mono, Nevada, Riverside

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.