Fat-hen - Chenopodium album

Variable, medium to tall dark green very mealy plant. Leaves variable, diamond shaped to lanceolate. Flowers tiny, green, in a leafy spike or panicle.

Other goosefoots - e.g. Fig-leaved and Maple-leaved Goosefoot.  Young orache plants can be similar.  Other alien species have been recorded in VC55 in the past; when in doubt the key in Stace (4th edn.) should be referred to.

Fat-hen is very variable. Stace (4th edn.) lists 6 similar species which are doubtfully segregated; they may be forms or subspecies of C album.   

Very variable in leaf shape, height, mealiness, etc. Leaves cuneate at base; lower leaves usually toothed/lobed; flowers and small branchlets mealy. 

A photograph of the whole plant

Waste ground, arable land, gardens, manure heaps and farmyards.

June to October.

Annual.

Common throughout most of Britain.

Common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 527 of the 617 tetrads.