Fat Hen

Fat Hen photos

Family name: Chenopodiaceae (Saltbush Family).

Scientific Name:

Chenopodium album

Fat Hen plants
Photo: A J Brown

Other Common Names:

Lambsquarters, Lambs Quarter, Mutton Tops, Pigweed, Bacon Weed, White Goosefoot, Wild Spinach, Allgood.

Status:

Introduced to Australia from Europe and eastern Asia.

Plant Description:

An erect, almost odourless, annual, herb growing to 1.5-2.5 m high with angular stems. Lower leaves rhombic to ovate and 3-5 cm long but up to 10 cm and upper leaves elliptic to linear. Leaf surfaces mealy (with a powdery or floury covering) but particularly so on the lower and whitish to greyish or bluish-green.

Flower-heads are in panicles, the larger being leafy but not obscuring the flowers. Flowers are greyish or greenish and clustered, bisexual or female, consisting of 5 parts (perianth segments) fused in the lower half. Stamens 5. Seed 1-1.5 mm diameter, black and smooth.

Habitat:

Mainly a weed of waste places, roadsides, stock-yards and horticultural cropping soils but can be found in or on the edges of saline sites.

Region	Salinity Class	Waterlogging Class
Mallee*, Central and Northern, Wimmera, Western, Gippsland	S0, S1, S2	W0, W1, W2

*largely confined to irrigated horticultural soils

Comments:

Fat Hen derived its name from being used for fattening poultry. It is also grown as a human food crop (either as grain or a green vegetable) in parts of Africa and Asia, including northern India, where it is known as Bathua, or as a fodder crop for cattle. It has been found as a food source in archaeological sites dating back to Roman and Iron Age.

Fat Hen is similar to Sowbane (Chenopodium murale) but differs in having reduced leaves within the flower-head. The Goosefoots and some Saltbush species (e.g. Orache - Atriplex prostrata) are similar in their vegetative stage and often difficult to tell apart without fruit.

Fat Hen Photos


Fat Hen flowers Photo: A J Brown	Flat Hen flower-head Photo: A J Brown
Leaves of Fat Hen Photo: A J Brown

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