Chenopodium schraderianum Roemer & Schultes, Syst. Veg. 6: 260. 1820; Ambrina foetida Moquin-Tandon; C. foetidum Schrader (1808), not Lamarck (1778); C. foetidum subsp. tibetanum Murr; Teloxys foetida Kitagawa; T. schraderiana (Roemer & Schultes) W. A. Weber.

Herbs annual, 20-60 cm tall, with a strong odor, covered with articulated, glandular hairs and sessile (rarely subsessile) glands. Stem erect, green striate, usually branched. Petiole 2-10 mm; leaf blade oblong, 2-6 × 1.5-3.5 cm, abaxially glabrous or slightly hairy when young, adaxially pubescent with articulated hairs and yellow, granular glands, rarely almost glabrous, base attenuate, margin pinnately lobed to parted, apex obtuse or acuminate, sometimes mucronate. Compound dichasia axillary. Flowers bisexual. Perianth 1-1.5 mm in diam.; segments 5, spreading in fruit, ovate to narrowly so, longitudinally keeled or crested abaxially, pubescent and with sessile glands, margin narrowly membranous. Stamens 5; filaments flattened; anthers subglobose. Utricle depressed globose; pericarp membranous. Seed horizontal, red-brown or black, sublustrous, 0.5-0.8 mm in diam., finely lineate, rim margin obtuse; embryo semi-annular, surrounding perisperm. Fl. Jul-Sep, fr. Sep-Oct.

For practical and nomenclatural reasons, Dysphania schraderiana is accepted here in a broad sense. Probably most (or all) records of this species from China belong to a distinct Asian entity (closely related species or subspecies) known as Chenopodium nepalense Link ex Colla (Herb. Pedem. 5: 571. 1836; C. multiflorum Moquin-Tandon), for which no combination in Dysphania is yet available. Judging from its characters, this plant occupies a transitional position between D. botrys and D. schraderiana. According to Uotila (in Fl. Iranica), C. nepalense differs from D. schraderiana s.str. in having perianth segments rather weakly keeled (not distinctly crested), and the keel bearing simple, eglandular hairs (in D. schraderiana s.str. the perianth segments are abaxially glabrous or subglabrous). Taxonomic relationships and distributional patterns of these related species or infraspecific taxa need clarification.

Forest margins, meadows, riversides, around houses, sometimes in fields. Gansu, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Africa, SW Asia, S Europe; naturalized in North America and locally elsewhere].