New Zealand spinach

NEW ZEALAND SPINACH - Tetragonia expansa.
Vegetation period is 50-70 days. Leaves are fleshy, thick, taste like spinach and don’t overgrow for a long time.
Leafstalks and young leaves are used as food. Re-grow when cut.
The plant likes heat very much and is grown during summertime.
Fruits best in medium weight humous and fairly fertile soil.
1,0 g = 15 seeds.

New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia expansa) is an interesting variety of spinach, although it is not a botanical relative of the common spinach.
This is an annual plant from the crystal family, its botanical name "tetragonium" ("quadrangular" in Greek) is associated with the angular shape of its fruits, containing 2-5 seeds.
The origin of this spinach is Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, where it was discovered in 1779 by a botanist who traveled with Captain Cook.
Two years later, the seeds of this plant came to England, from where they quickly spread throughout Europe.
The British grew New Zealand lettuce only in greenhouses for a very long time, considering this southern plant to be very thermophilic, until in the middle of the 19th century they accidentally discovered that this spinach grows well in the open air and already 6 weeks after planting its leaves can be eaten.
Currently, New Zealand spinach is widely grown in all countries of Central and Southern Europe and the USA. In our gardens and orchards, this plant is a rarity, although its leaves are distinguished by increased taste.
New Zealand spinach has a number of distinctive features from ordinary spinach that we are used to: it does not lose commercial qualities during flowering, it is distinguished by an exceptionally rapidly growing leaf mass. It can be grown throughout the summer season.
The greens of New Zealand spinach are “fleshy” - they are cut several times from one plant. Its leaves are diamond-shaped, thickened and fleshy, serrated, with short petioles, dark green, very juicy.
The leaves are arranged in a spiral on a strongly branched stem, sometimes having a reddish tint. Small solitary pale yellow flowers are formed one at a time in the axils of the leaves.
Spinach flowering is very extended and continues until autumn. The fruits are in the form of a shell-like seed capsule with thorns, which contains 3-8 seeds.
The root system of the plant is branched, located shallow in the soil.

Bot. syn.: Tetragonia tetragonoides (Pall.) Kuntze, Demidovia tetragonoides Pall.