Annual, 10-150 cm, usually erect, variously branched, ± grey farinose. Stems yellowish to green, green-striated, sometimes reddish or with red spots at leaf axils. Lower and medium leaves petiolate, blade usually 2-6(-10) cm, variously trullate, rhombic-ovate to lanceolate, clearly longer than broad, base narrowly to broadly cuneate, margins irregularly serrate to entire, often somewhat 3-lobed, teeth mostly acute, often unequal in size; uppermost leaves lanceolate, usually entire. Inflorescence a variable spiciform or cymosely branched panicle, mostly terminal. Perianth segments 5, dorsally keeled. Perianth falling with fruit. Pericarp thin, ± adherent. Seeds horizontal, black, 1.1-1.5 mm in diameter, somewhat ovate, margin weakly acute; testa with faint radial striae, otherwise almost smooth.

Fl. Per.: January - September.

Lectotype, ‘Habitat in agris Europae’, Herb. Linn. No. 313/8 (LINN!). Brenan in Milne-Redhead & Turrill, Fl. Trop. E Afr., Chenop.: 6. 1954.

Fields, gardens, ruderal places, roadsides, irrigated places, slopes, Cedrus forest. 360-4330 m; Distribution: Almost cosmopolitan, common in subtropical to temperate zones, more infrequent in the tropics and cooler regions.

C. album, as delimited here, is not uniform. Its morphological variation is wide probably both because of genetic and environmental factors. The delimitation and variation differ fairly much from those in Europe and the Mediterranean. However, for any taxonomic conclusions the material available in herbaria is poor both in quantity and quality. Adequate additional material, cultivation experiments to study the effect of the environment on the morphology of the taxa and a wide-ranging taxonomic revision are much needed for C. album and related taxa in the area. C. atripliciforme, C. ficifolium, C. karoi, C. novopokrovskianum and C. strictum have been often determined as C. album. Most difficult to identify are small plants with narrow or almost circular, ± entire leaves. C. giganteum D.Don, described from India and closely related to C. album, should be expected from our area. It has large, roundish leaves with regularly dentate margins and usually red vesicular hairs when young.