Oxybasis rubra

Oxybasis rubra
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Embryophytes
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Amaranthaceae
Genus: Oxybasis
Species:
O. rubra
Binomial name
Oxybasis rubra
(L.) S. Fuentes, Uotila & Borsch
Synonyms
List
    • Chenopodium rubrum L.
    • Atriplex rubra (L.) Crantz
    • Blitum polymorphum var. rubrum (L.) Beck
    • Blitum rubrum (L.) Rchb.
    • Botrys rubra (L.) Lunell
    • Orthospermum rubrum (L.) Opiz
    • Orthosporum rubrum (L.) T. Nees

Oxybasis rubra (until recently known as Chenopodium rubrum), red goosefoot, is an annual plant in the amaranth family. It is native to North America and Eurasia.

Description

Red goosefoot is a variable plant, an annual growing from just a few centimetres tall to as much as 1.5 m, usually erect but sometimes procumbent. It is sometimes quite fleshy plant, always glabrous, and usually green but sometimes red or, rarely, yellowish. The stems are ridged or angular and often branched, especially close to the base.

The leaves are alternate and roughly diamond-shaped, anything from 1 cm to 15 cm long, with a cuneate base and several lobes or large, blunt teeth. They can be quite succulent, especially in plants growing in brackish conditions. The petiole is about half as long as the basal leaves, shorter in the upper ones, and there is no stipule.

A lower leaf from a well-grown plant
Fleshy leaves of a saltmarsh-grown plant

The inflorescence is essentially a spike with many dense glomerules, or ball-like clusters of flowers, interspersed with simple or leaf-like bracts. The flowers are of two types: the terminal ones being bisexual, with 4-5 perianth segments ("petals"), 4-5 stamens and 2 stigmas; the lateral ones are generally female with 3 perianth segments. When ripe, the achenes (fruits) fall whilst still within the perianth, releasing many small, brown, oval seeds about 1 mm long.[2]

A terminal flower with 5 perianth segments

Taxonomy

The name was coined in 2012, following a study of the phylogeny of the Chenopodioideae.[3]

In America it is sometimes known as coastblite goosefoot[4]

Habitat and ecology

Red goosefoot grows in places where there was standing water during the winter, which dries out to leave bare mud on which the seeds germinate in the spring. It flowers and fruits from summer to early autumn. Its physical requirements are generally quite broad: typically it grows in full sunlight but it can tolerate light shade; although it often starts on wet ground, it often found on parched soils by summer; and in terms of nutrients, it grows on substrates as rich as farmyard dung heaps or as poor as mesotrophic lake margins.[5] It is even tolerant of a wide range of salinity, from freshwater to saltmarsh. The only attribute for which it has a restricted range is pH, as it is not found on either strongly acid or calcareous soils. The Ellenberg-type indicator values it has been assigned in Britain do not reflect this habitat range very well, instead giving neutral values for most attributes: L = 7, F = 7, R = 7, N = 8 and S = 1,[6] but recently recalculated values for Europe give perhaps more realistic scores of L = 8, F = 6, R = 7, N = x, S = 1 and T = 6 ('x' in this context meaning that the plant is not sensitive to that variable).[7]

Conservation status in the United States

It is listed a special concern and believed extirpated in Connecticut.[8] It is listed as endangered in New Jersey, and as threatened in Maine, New Hampshire, and in New York.[9]

Native American ethnobotany

The Goshute Shosone of Utah use the seeds for food.[10] The name of the plant in the Goshute Shoshone language is on'-tǐm-pi-wa-tsǐp, on'-tǐm-pi-wa, on'-tǐm-pi-a-wa or on'-tǐm-pai-wa.[11]

References

  1. ↑ Maiz-Tome, L. 2016 (2016). "Chenopodium rubrum". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016 e.T64310645A67729145. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T64310645A67729145.en. Retrieved 3 March 2022.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ↑ Sell, Peter; Murrell, Gina (2018). Flora of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-55335-3.
  3. ↑ Susy Fuentes-Bazan, Pertti Uotila, Thomas Borsch: A novel phylogeny-based generic classification for Chenopodium sensu lato, and a tribal rearrangement of Chenopodioideae (Chenopodiaceae). In: Willdenowia. Vol. 42, No. 1, 2012, p. 15-16.
  4. ↑ "Oxybasis rubra". Germplasm Resources Information Network. Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 2013-07-05.
  5. ↑ Lockton, Alex; Whild, Sarah (2015). The Flora and Vegetation of Shropshire. Montford Bridge: Shropshire Botanical Society. ISBN 978-0-9530937-2-4.
  6. ↑ Hill, M.O.; Mountford, J.O.; Roy, D.B.; Bunce, R.G.H. (1999). Ellenberg's indicator values for British plants. ECOFACT Volume 2. Technical Annex (PDF). Institute of Terrestrial Ecology. ISBN 1870393481.
  7. ↑ Tichý, Lubomír; Axmanová, Irena; Dengler, Jürgen; Guarino, Riccardo; Jansen, Florian; Midolo, Gabriele; Nobis, Michael P.; Van Meerbeek, Koenraad; Aćić, Svetlana; Attorre, Fabio; Bergmeier, Erwin; Biurrun, Idoia; Bonari, Gianmaria; Bruelheide, Helge; Campos, Juan Antonio (2023). "Ellenberg-type indicator values for European vascular plant species". Journal of Vegetation Science. 34 (1): e13168. ISSN 1100-9233.
  8. ↑ "Connecticut's Endangered, Threatened and Special Concern Species 2015". State of Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Bureau of Natural Resources. Retrieved 28 January 2018. (Note: This list is newer than the one used by plants.usda.gov and is more up-to-date.)
  9. ↑ "Plants Profile for Chenopodium rubrum (red goosefoot)". plants.usda.gov. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  10. ↑ Chamberlin, Ralph V., 1911, The Ethno-Botany of the Gosiute Indians of Utah, Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association 2(5):331-405., page 366
  11. ↑ Chamberlin, Ralph Vary (1911). "The Ethno-botany of the Gosiute Indians of Utah" (PDF). Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association Vol II, Part 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2025-05-25. Retrieved 2007-11-12.
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