Plants annual, non-aromatic herbs; young stems and leaves glabrescent, farinose with vesicular trichomes, which later totally collapse when dry and are mostly caducous. Stems erect, branched. Leaves alternate, petiolate; blades thickish triangular, ovate, rhombic-ovate to lanceolate; margins irregularly dentate to lobed, or pinnatifid with narrow dentate lobes. Inflorescences axillary and terminal, largely leafy to leafless, with flowers in small dense glomerules arranged spicately or paniculately. Flowers bisexual or pistillate; perianth segments 5, basally connate, with strong midrib visible inside, prominently keeled near the tips, enclosing the fruit or spreading in fruit; stamens 5; style branches 2. Fruits with membraneous pericarp, usually firmly adherent to the seed; seeds horizontal, lenticular, round in outline, margin acute to fairly obtuse, testa black, often prominently pitted, sometimes rugulose or almost smooth.
Chenipodiastrum includes 5 species. One species, Chenopodiastrum murale, grows in Somaliland. Being a cosmopolitan weed of disturbed, poorly grown sites, it probably also grows in Somalia.
Plants of the World Online (POWO): Chenopodiastrum. The distribution map shows the countries where the taxon is considered native or introduced but is now growing in the wild.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF): Chenopodiastrum. Records may be of cultivated specimens.
Fuentes-Bazan S., P. Uotila & T. Borsch (2012) A novel phylogeny-based generic classification for Chenopodium sensu lato, and a tribal rearrangement of Chenopodioideae (Chenopodiaceae). Willdenowia 42: 5 – 24. June 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.3372/wi42.42101.
