Food species comprise spinach (Spinacia oleracea), Good King Henry (Blitum bonus-henricus), several Chenopodium species (quinoa, kañiwa, fat hen), orache (Atriplex spp.), and epazote (Dysphania ambrosioides). The name is Greek for goosefoot, the common name of a genus of plants having small greenish flowers.
The Chenopodioideae are annual or perennial herbs, subshrubs, shrub or small trees. The leaves are usually alternate and flat.
The flowers are often unisexual. Many species are monoecious or have mixed inflorescences of bisexual and unisexual flowers. Some species are dioecious, like Spinacia, Grayia, Exomis microphylla, and Atriplex. In several species of tribe Atripliceae, the female flowers are without perianth, but enclosed by two bracts. The species with a perianth have up to five tepals. The seed is horizontal or vertical, with annular or horseshoe-shaped embryo.
The subfamily Chenopodioideae is distributed worldwide, but originates from Eurasia.
According to Fuentes-Bazan et al. (2012) and based on molecular genetic research, the subfamily comprises four tribes and includes about twenty-six genera:
Tribus Anserineae Dumort. (Syn. Spinacieae), with two genera:
Spinacia L.: with three species in Western Asia and North Africa:
Tribus Atripliceae C. A. Mey. (Syn. Chenopodieae Dumort.): Fuentes-Bazan et al. (2012) include here also Chenopodium and related genera, as Chenopodiastrum, Lipandra and Oxybasis.
Archiatriplex nanpinensis G.L.Chu: endemic in the Chinese province Sichuan.[1]
Atriplex L. - saltbush, orache (Syn.: Blackiella, Cremnophyton, Haloxanthium, Neopreissia, Obione, Pachypharynx, Senniella, Theleophyton), with about 300 species worldwide
Gelin Zhu, Sergei L. Mosyakin & Steven E. Clemants (2003): Archiatriplex - Online, In: Wu Zhengyi, Peter H. Raven, Deyuan Hong (Hrsg.): Flora of China, Volume 5: Ulmaceae through Basellaceae, Science Press und Missouri Botanical Garden Press, Beijing und St. Louis, ISBN1-930723-27-X. p. 360
Gelin Zhu, Sergei L. Mosyakin & Steven E. Clemants (2003): Baolia - Online, In: Wu Zhengyi, Peter H. Raven, Deyuan Hong (Hrsg.): Flora of China, Volume 5: Ulmaceae through Basellaceae, Science Press und Missouri Botanical Garden Press, Beijing und St. Louis, ISBN1-930723-27-X. p. 375
Susy Fuentes-Bazan, Guilhem Mansion, Thomas Borsch (2012): Towards a species level tree of the globally diverse genus Chenopodium (Chenopodiaceae). In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 62(1), pp. 359–374, ISSN1055-7903, doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2011.10.006
Elizabeth H. Zacharias, Bruce G. Baldwin (2010): A Molecular Phylogeny of North American Atripliceae (Chenopodiaceae), with Implications for Floral and Photosynthetic Pathway Evolution. In: Systematic Botany35(4), pp. 839-857. doi:10.1600/036364410X539907
Sergei L. Mosyakin (2003): Cycloloma - Online, In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee (Hrsg.): Flora of North America North of Mexico, Volume 4: Magnoliophyta: Caryophyllidae, part 1., Oxford University Press, New York, ISBN0-19-517389-9, p.264-265
Assorted angiosperm pollen from the Edmonton Formation (Maestrichtian), Alberta, Canada by Satish K. Srivastava – Canadian Journal of Botany, 1969, 47(6): 975-989, doi:10.1139/b69-138
Susy Fuentes-Bazan, Pertti Uotila, Thomas Borsch (2012): A novel phylogeny-based generic classification for Chenopodium sensu lato, and a tribal rearrangement of Chenopodioideae (Chenopodiaceae). In: Willdenowia. Vol. 42, No. 1, p.5-24.
Gudrun Kadereit, Evgeny V. Mavrodiev, Elizabeth H. Zacharias & Alexander P. Sukhorukov: Molecular phylogeny of Atripliceae (Chenopodioideae, Chenopodiaceae) (2010): Implications for systematics, biogeography, flower and fruit evolution, and the origin of C4 Photosynthesis. - In: American Journal of Botany97(10): p.1664-1687. (chapters description, distribution and systematics)
A.P. Sukhorukov, M. Zhang (2013): Fruit and seed Anatomy of Chenopodium and related genera (Chenopodioideae, Chenopodiaceae/Amaranthaceae): Implications for evolution and taxonomy. - PLOS ONE. Vol. 8, № 4. e61906. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061906
