Description:

• Annual or perennial herbs, shrublets or shrubs, often halophytic or nitrophilous, farinose, lepidote, glabrous, with a mealy bloom of vesicular hairs or an indumentum of simple to branched hairs, sometimes fleshy; stems continuous or with distinct segments or joints; plants sometimes monoecious or dioecious
• Leaves usually alternate, rarely opposite, simple, sometimes succulent; opposite and reduced to small lobes at apex of jointed internodes (articles) (in Salicornieae); stipules 0
• Inflorescences compact or open cymes or panicles, or reduced to solitary axillary flowers; bracts and bracteoles present or 0
• Flowers bisexual or unisexual, usually regular, sessile, monochlamydeous, small to minute, mostly green or grey
• Perianth of 1-5 tepals, or absent from female flowers, free or often connate below, imbricate or almost valvate, persistent, sometimes enlarged and developing lobes with a horn or spines at back, or winged or becoming succulent in fruit
• Stamens 1-5, opposite to, as many as, or fewer than tepals, hypogynous or perigynous; filaments usually free, occasionally connate at base; anthers exserted, 2-thecous with connective sometimes produced, thecae with or without a terminal appendage, often inflated and coloured, dehiscing by longitudinal slits; staminodes usually 0
• Disc sometimes present
• Ovary free and superior (half-inferior in *Beta) 2- or 3-carpellate, 1-locular; ovule solitary, basal, campylotropous to amphitropous; stigmas usually 2-3(-6), sessile or on stylar arms
• Fruit dehiscent or indehiscent, a utricle, achene or berry, dry or with membranous, crustaceous, or succulent pericarp, usually enclosed in and falling off with a bladdery perianth, rarely a hard nut
• Seed often lenticular, subglobose or reniform; testa membranous to crustaceous; embryo straight, curved, annular or spiral, surrounding the endosperm (0 in Salicornia)
  

Classification Notes:

• The Chenopodiaceae subfamily Salicornioideae is sometimes placed in its own family, Salicorniaceae J.Agardh (1858), e.g. by Scott (1977a)
• The Chenopodiaceae subfamily Salsoloideae is sometimes placed in its own family, Salsolaceae Moq. (1849), e.g. by Scott (1977a, b)

Nomenclature:

• Chenopodiaceae
  • Ventenat: 253 (1799)
  • Fenzl: 292 (1837)
  • Moquin-Tandon: 1 (1840)
  • Moquin-Tandon: 41 (1849)
  • Hooker: 43 (1880)
  • Volkens: 36 (1892)
  • Ulbrich: 379 (1934)
  • Williams & Ford-Lloyd: 353 (1974)
  • Friis & Gilbert: 127 (1993)
  • Kühn: 253 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 100, with ± 1 500 species, cosmopolitan, particularly common in semi-arid environments and in saline habitats; a few species have given rise to cultivars of agriculture; many occur as weeds of cultivation
• Southern Africa: Genera 14 (2 exotic), species 164

References:

• AGARDH, J.G. 1858. Theoria systematis plantarum. Gleerup, Lund
• FENZL, E. 1837. Order CHENOPODEAE. In S.L. Endlicher, Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita 1. Beck, Vienna
• FRIIS, I. & GILBERT, M.G. 1993. Chenopodiaceae. Flora of Somalia 1
• HOOKER, J.D. 1880. Chenopodiaceae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 3,1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• KÜHN, U. 1993. Chenopodiaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• MOQUIN-TANDON, C.H.B.A. 1840. Chenopodearum monographica enumeratio. P.-J. Loss, Paris
• MOQUIN-TANDON, C.H.B.A. 1849. Salsolaceae Moq. In A.P. de Candolle, Prodromus 13,2. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
• SCOTT, A.J. 1977a. Reinstatement and revision of Salicorniaceae J.Agardh (CARYOPHYLLALES). Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 75
• SCOTT, A.J. 1977b. Proposal to conserve the family name Salsolaceae Moquin-Tandon (1849) (CARYOPHYLLALES) when it is treated as a separate family from the Chenopodiaceae Ventenat (1799). Taxon 26
• SCOTT, A.J. 1978. A review of the classification of Chenopodium L. and related genera (Chenopodiaceae). Botanische Jahrbücher 100
• ULBRICH, E. 1934. Chenopodiaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien edn 2, 16c
• VENTENAT, E.P. 1799. Chenopodiaceae. Tableau du règne végétal 2. J. Drisonnier, Paris
• VOLKENS, G. 1892. Chenopodiaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 3,1a
• WILLIAMS, J.T. & FORD-LLOYD, B.V. 1974. The systematics of the Chenopodiaceae. Taxon 23

Resources:

• Classification of Chenopodiaceae
• Key to Chenopodiaceae genera

• Chenopodiaceae genera: