Common in open areas The leaves are a nutritious vegetable. Seed is eaten cooked or grounded into a powder and used in baking. The seeds are also fermented to make alcoholic beverages. The plant is an astringent, anthelmintic and diuretic. It is also grown as an ornamental.
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uses
The leaves are a nutritious vegetable. Seed is eaten cooked or grounded into a powder and used in baking. The seeds are also fermented to make alcoholic beverages. The plant is an astringent, anthelmintic and diuretic. It is also grown as an ornamental.
Erect annual herbs. Leaves × 3-15 2-7 cm, ovate-oblong, base attenuate, apex obtuse to subacute, mucronate; petiole to 7 cm long. Flowers in axillary Th and terminal panicled spikes, red or green, to 20 cm long; male and female flowers intermixed throughout the spikes. Bract ovate, caudate-acuminate, aristate. Flowers unisexual. Perianth 5, 2-3.5 mm long, oblong-elliptic, aristate. Stamens 5. Stigma 3-lobed, erect or flexuose. Utricle ca. 2 mm long, ovoid-globose, circumscissile. Seeds 1-1.5 mm across, lenticular, compressed, black, shining.