New Zealand Spinach

Tetragonia tetragonioides is cultivated as a vegetable.

This species is used medicinally and is cultivated as a vegetable worldwide.

Stems mat-forming, 3-14 dm. Leaves 1-10 × 5-5 cm; petiole 1-3 cm, winged; blade pale green abaxially, dark green adaxially, midvein and lateral veins raised abaxially, ovate-rhombic to triangular, base truncate, papillate with larger papillae abaxially. Inflorescences: peduncle to 2 mm. Flowers sometimes unisexual; calyx lobes spreading, yellow, ovate to half orbiculate, 2 mm; stamens clustered or scattered. Fruits turbinate, 8-12 mm; horns 4-6. Seeds smooth. 2n = 32.

Herbs annual, erect when young, becoming decumbent, 40-60 cm tall. Stems with densely placed bladder cells when young. Petiole 5-30 mm, thick; leaf blade rhomboid-ovate or deltoid-ovate, 0.4-10 × 2.5-8 cm. Pedicel to 2 mm. Flowers 1-3. Perigone tube 2-3 mm; lobes mostly 4, inside bright yellow to yellowish green. Stamens 10-13. Fruit turbinate, ca. 5 mm, 4- or 5-corniculate. Seeds as many as locules. Fl. and fr. Aug-Oct. 2n = 16*

introduced; Calif., Conn., Fla., Mass., N.C., Oreg., Pa., W.Va., Wis.; Mexico; South America; e Asia; Pacific Islands (New Zealand); Australia.

Flowering spring-fall.

Sand dunes, bluffs, margins of coastal wetlands, disturbed areas; 0-500m.

Sandy shores, also cultivated. Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Africa, E Asia, Australia, South America].

Demidovia tetragonioides Pallas, Enum. Hort. Demidof, 150, plate 1. 1781; Tetragonia expansa Murray

Demidovia tetragonioides Pallas, Enum. Hort. Demidof, 150. 1781; Tetragonia expansa Murray.