Talk:Chenopodium berlandieri

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thread_title: [[WP:FOOD|WikiProject Food and drink]] Tagging

message: I would like to see a map of their world distribution. — Anita5192 (talk) 18:12, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Distribution 

message: This is an evaluation of the Chenopodium berlandieri article for a class. My intent and the intent of the assignment is to improve the current article's content and quality. The first step is an assessment of the current state of the article. This is that assessment. --Aperium (talk) 03:12, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evaluation for PBIO 5180: Writing in the Life Sciences 

message: Dear Talk community,
A few people and I have been working on complementing and expanding the Wikipedia article on pitseed goosefoot. This is our result. We would love to receive feedback from you before making any real changes to the Wikipedia article. All underlined sentences are already part of the article on goosefoot. The sentences and paragraphs that are not underlined would be added to the article. Let us know what you think!
=== Morphology ===
==== Flowers ====
Very small flowers are tightly packed in small round clusters (glomerules) in spike-like and branching arrangements at the top of the stem, at the tips of branching stems and arising from upper leaf axils. The glomerules usually crowd on the branch. Within a glomerule, flowers may be at different stages of development: some just budding and others with maturing fruit.  Flowers lack petals, have 5 stamens and a round, green ovary with a 2-parted style at the tip that is not divided all the way to the base. Cupping the flower is a green calyx with 5 lobes 0.5 to 1.5 mm long and variable shape: triangular or egg-shaped, strongly keeled, blunt to rounded at the tip and thin and papery around the edges. Bracts are leaf-like or sometimes absent. The calyx, stalks and branches are moderately to densely white-mealy.
==== Leaves and Stems ====
Leaves are alternate, ½ to 6 inches long and up to 3½ inches wide. The leaves are variable in shape: diamond to triangular to egg-shaped to lance-elliptic in outline. The tips may be pointed or blunt, while wedge-shaped or straight across at the base tapering to a stalk up to 3½ inches long. Lower leaves are largest, irregularly toothed, 1½ to 2+ times as long as wide and usually with a pair of shallow lobes near the base. Leaves become smaller and less toothy as they ascend the stem with the uppermost leaves often much narrower, proportionately longer and toothless.
Surfaces are green, hairless and moderately to densely white-mealy, especially when young. The upper surface usually becomes smooth, while the lower surface usually remains white-mealy. Stems are also highly variable: erect to ascending, unbranched to much branched and sparsely to densely white-mealy, especially on the upper stem. The stem color may vary from green to purple-striped to red.
=== Domestication ===
C. berlandieri is the progenitor of all domesticated Chenopodium varieties in North and South America. In prehistoric eastern North America it was a part of the Eastern Agricultural Complex, a set of cultivated and domesticated species which supported sedentary and migrant populations for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence shows the species was extensively foraged as a wild plant in eastern North America as early as 6,500 BC. By 1700 BC, the plant had clearly been domesticated as a pseudocereal crop. The name given to the domesticated variety is C. b. ssp. jonesianum. The oldest evidence for domestication comes from caches of thin-testa seeds from rock shelters in the Ozark Plateaus and Ohio River basin.
Chenopodium berlandieri was cultivated alongside three other starchy, seed-bearing plants, namely maygrass, little barley and knotweed, providing an important nutritional basis for indigenous groups at the time.Smith, Bruce D. (1987). The economic potential of Chenopodium Berlandieri in prehistoric Eastern North America. J. Ethnobiol. 7(1):29-54. https://ethnobiology.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/JoE/7-1/Smith1987.pdf However, given the small quantities of this crop found at anthropological sights in North America, it is assumed that historic use would have been supplementary nutrition. Around approximately 1600 BC, another annual starchy seed crop, maize, appeared in the Eastern Woodlands. Maize would later on come to dominate much of North American agriculture. However, for about 3000 years, maize formed only a minor component of garden or field plots. By approximately 1150 AD, maize became a major dietary constituent of prehistoric populations in the Eastern Woodlands. This essentially led to a substantial decrease in Chenopodium berlandieri cultivation. Nonetheless, pitseed goosefoot remained important up until the point of European contact, after which it virtually disappeared. 
The only known potential historic record of C. b. ssp. jonesianum is a c.a. 1720 account by Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz.According to Le Page, the Natchez people cultivated a grain-like crop called Choupichoul that was delicious, nutritious, highly productive, and required minimal human labor. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that the crop was a domesticated variety of C. berlandieri.
There is also evidence that indigenous people used pitseed goosefoot not only for subsistence, but also for medicinal and preservative reasons. Chenopodium berlandieri appears to prevent intestinal parasites and has the capacity of preserving meals. These qualities may explain why indigenous people kept cultivating Chenopodium berlandieri despite the relatively large effort of harvesting its minuscule seeds.Robinson, Daniel Shelton, " Chenopodium berlandieri and the Cultural Origins of Agriculture in the Eastern
Woodlands. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2012. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/1198 It is assumed that the raw leaves were used medicinally, rather than the seeds. 
Although cultivation disappeared in eastern North America, C. b. subsp. nuttalliae continues to be cultivated as a domesticated crop in Mexico. Three varieties of the subspecies are grown as a pseudocereal, as a leaf vegetable, and for its broccoli-like flowering shoots, respectively. 
The principal difference between wild and domesticated forms of Chenopodium is the thickness of the seed coat. In the domesticated varieties, due to selective pressures during domestication, the testas are less than 20 microns thick; the testas of wild chenopods are 40 to 60 microns thick. This morphological characteristic is shared by the modern cultivated chenopod C. b. subsp. nuttalliae and the archaeological specimens of C. b. ssp. jonesianum. Genetic studies have shown that eastern North American and Mexican cultivated forms have considerable genetic distance between them. Despite the initial assumption of a single domestication event, consensus in the field now supports at least two independent domestication events in North America. Similarly, C. berlandieri's South American branch likely experienced at least two independent domestication events, both of which are called C. quinoa.
:This is the only section of the article that I wrote -- and I'm pleased you preserved most or all of my prose. :) A critique after a quick read of this section: the third paragraph above should be combined with or follow paragraph one.  I would get rid of "it is assumed" on two occasions. Likewise "there is" should go. Too passive. Use active verbs.  Also delete some adverbs. "relatively, "essentially" Presumably, it's "meats" not "meals."  But all in all, that's good work.  Congratulations! Smallchief (talk) 14:12, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complementing and expanding the article on Chenopodium berlandieri 

message: C. berlandieri is the progenitor of all domesticated Chenopodium varieties in North and South America. In prehistoric eastern North America it was a part of the Eastern Agricultural Complex, a set of cultivated and domesticated species which supported sedentary and migrant populations for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence shows the species was extensively foraged as a wild plant in eastern North America as early as 6,500 BC. By 1700 BC, the plant had clearly been domesticated as a pseudocereal crop. The name given to the domesticated variety is C. b. ssp. jonesianum. The oldest evidence for domestication comes from caches of thin-testa seeds from rock shelters in the Ozark Plateaus and Ohio River basin.
Chenopodium berlandieri was cultivated alongside three other starchy, seed-bearing plants, namely maygrass, little barley and knotweed, providing an important nutritional basis for indigenous groups at the time.Smith, Bruce D. (1987). The economic potential of Chenopodium Berlandieri in prehistoric Eastern North America. J. Ethnobiol. 7(1):29-54. https://ethnobiology.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/JoE/7-1/Smith1987.pdf However, given the small quantities of this crop found at anthropological sights in North America, it is assumed that historic use would have been supplementary nutrition. Around approximately 1600 BC, another annual starchy seed crop, maize, appeared in the Eastern Woodlands. Maize would later on come to dominate much of North American agriculture. However, for about 3000 years, maize formed only a minor component of garden or field plots. By approximately 1150 AD, maize became a major dietary constituent of prehistoric populations in the Eastern Woodlands. This essentially led to a substantial decrease in Chenopodium berlandieri cultivation. Nonetheless, pitseed goosefoot remained important up until the point of European contact, after which it virtually disappeared. 
The only known potential historic record of C. b. ssp. jonesianum is a c.a. 1720 account by Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz.According to Le Page, the Natchez people cultivated a grain-like crop called Choupichoul that was delicious, nutritious, highly productive, and required minimal human labor. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that the crop was a domesticated variety of C. berlandieri.
There is also evidence that indigenous people used pitseed goosefoot not only for subsistence, but also for medicinal and preservative reasons. Chenopodium berlandieri appears to prevent intestinal parasites and has the capacity of preserving meals. These qualities may explain why indigenous people kept cultivating Chenopodium berlandieri despite the relatively large effort of harvesting its minuscule seeds.Robinson, Daniel Shelton, " Chenopodium berlandieri and the Cultural Origins of Agriculture in the Eastern
Woodlands. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2012. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/1198 It is assumed that the raw leaves were used medicinally, rather than the seeds. 
Although cultivation disappeared in eastern North America, C. b. subsp. nuttalliae continues to be cultivated as a domesticated crop in Mexico. Three varieties of the subspecies are grown as a pseudocereal, as a leaf vegetable, and for its broccoli-like flowering shoots, respectively. 
The principal difference between wild and domesticated forms of Chenopodium is the thickness of the seed coat. In the domesticated varieties, due to selective pressures during domestication, the testas are less than 20 microns thick; the testas of wild chenopods are 40 to 60 microns thick. This morphological characteristic is shared by the modern cultivated chenopod C. b. subsp. nuttalliae and the archaeological specimens of C. b. ssp. jonesianum. Genetic studies have shown that eastern North American and Mexican cultivated forms have considerable genetic distance between them. Despite the initial assumption of a single domestication event, consensus in the field now supports at least two independent domestication events in North America. Similarly, C. berlandieri's South American branch likely experienced at least two independent domestication events, both of which are called C. quinoa.
:This is the only section of the article that I wrote -- and I'm pleased you preserved most or all of my prose. :) A critique after a quick read of this section: the third paragraph above should be combined with or follow paragraph one.  I would get rid of "it is assumed" on two occasions. Likewise "there is" should go. Too passive. Use active verbs.  Also delete some adverbs. "relatively, "essentially" Presumably, it's "meats" not "meals."  But all in all, that's good work.  Congratulations! Smallchief (talk) 14:12, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Domestication 

message: Chenopodium berlandieri is a prime candidate for additional research, especially its prospects for utility in the medicinal model. Long-term use of this plant makes little sense when judged in strict terms of subsistence. C. berlandieri shares some qualities with its medicinally useful relatives such as Chenopodium ambrosioides which is a widely known vermifuge and a potential food preservative. This makes its potential medicinal value a possibility. Its chemical constituents and possible medicinal properties have only been briefly examined in the anthropological and botanical literature. The useful substances in the leaves avoid the problems associated with the inefficiency of harvesting and processing the seeds.. Tests for and analyses of bioactive chemical compounds would likely resolve questions about the use of Chenopodium berlandieri and the medicinal use may be evident in the concentration of these compounds.
Sarah-Lea Rose (talk) 10:57, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future Potential as Medicine