Native to New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, Japan, and South America.In the Hawaiian Islands,
naturalized on
Midway, Nihoa, Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i. First collected 1909, Forbes 1406.O (BISH).
Habitat
In Hawai`i cultivated and now established in scattered coastal sites
Leaves deltate to rhombic ovate, 2-12 cm long, 1.5-5 cm wide, pubescent with bladder like hairs, margins entire to undulate, apex obtuse to acute, base truncate to cuneate, abruptly constricted to a winged petiole 1-1.5 cm long.
Flowers
Flowers sometimes unisexual, 1(2), axillary; sepals 4(5), green externally, yellow within, spreading, 1.5-2.5 mm long; stamens 10-20, greenish yellow; ovary inferior, 3-8-celled, subsessile.
Fruit
Fruit nut-like, fleshy when young, dry and indurate with age, turbinate, angled, ca. 10 mm long, the apex with 2-5 horn like projections from which another flower or branchlet is occasionally produced.
Seeds
Seeds usually 1 per cell, reniform, ca. 2 mm in diameter.
Chromosomes
2n = 16, 32.
Notes
New Zealand spinach. Adventitious buds sometimes arise from the calyx, producing flowers that are occasionally fertile.
