Plants annual. Leaf blades triangular, narrowly triangular, or rhombic, glabrous. Flowers: perianth segments 3-4, connate nearly to apex or only at base, margins entire; stigmas 0.1-0.2 mm. Seeds vertical and horizontal.

Species 2 (2 in the flora): North America, Europe, Asia.

Chenopodium rubrum was selected as the type of Chenopodium by N. L. Britton and A. Brown (1913). Following that typification, this should be sect. Chenopodium. Chenopodium album was proposed as the lectotype of the genus by A. S. Hitchcock and M. L. Green (1929). It is now the "standing type" of the genus (W. Greuter et al. 1993; C. Jarvis et al. 1993), and we agree with that decision (S. L. Mosyakin and S. E. Clemants 1996). While acceptance of C. rubrum as the type would have no real consequences for our treatment here, this species has occasionally been placed in the genus Blitum (a segregate of Chenopodium), and if new evidence should suggest that this latter treatment should be followed then nomenclatural havoc would occur.