Strawberry Blite

"Strawberry-Blite" (Chenopodium capitatum)

2007 August 5

2007 July 17

2007 July 17

2007 September 9

2007 September 9

The red fruits do sort of look like srawberries but the "blite" part of the name sort of gives one an initial bad impression, for one immediately thinks of the word "blight" instead of "blite". One reference tells me 'blite' comes from the Latin blitum, meaning 'insipid' , another reference tells me it comes from the Greek bliton, a word used for plants that have edible leaves (like spinach). The red fruit of this plant can be and was used as a red dye source. One can even add the leaves and flowers to a salad (I haven't tried this). I had never seen this plant before moving here and was quite taken with the pretty red fruit so had to search out just what it was. Now, we are forever picking these plants out of our front lawn and garden. While they can grow to a fair size, we get these miniature versions trying to sneak by, just under the lawn mower blades!