Veratrum (scientific name: Veratrum nigrum?L.): a plant of the genus Veratrum in the family Liliaceae, a perennial herb; rhizome short and thick; stems leafy, often with remnant leaf sheaths cleft into fibers at the base; leaves usually broad, clasping. Strongly veined and folded; flowers greenish white or dark purple, bisexual or polygamous, short-stalked, arranged in large terminal panicles;

Tepals 6, persistent; stamens 6, opposite the tepals, filaments filiform, anthers cordate, anthers coherent; ovary superior, 3-loculed; styles 3, persistent; capsule 1.5-2 cm long, 1-1.3 cm wide. Flowering and fruiting July-September.

Extended information:

Morphological characters

Quinoa plants Up to 1 m tall, usually stout, with the basal sheaths withered and remaining as a black fibrous web with mesh. Leaves elliptic, broadly ovate-elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, often highly variable in size, usually 22-25 centimeters long, about 10 centimeters wide, thinly leathery, apex acute or acuminate, base sessile or shortly stipitate from the upper part of the stem, both surfaces glabrous.

Panicles densely covered with black-purple flowers; lateral racemes suberect and spreading, 4-12(-22) cm long, usually with male flowers; terminal racemes often more than twice as long as lateral ones, almost entirely bearing bisexual flowers;

Raceme and branch rachis densely covered with white woolly hairs; bracteoles lanceolate, with hairy margins and abaxial surface; pedicels on lateral inflorescences ca. 5 mm, ca. equal to or longer than bracteoles, densely covered with white woolly hairs. longer than bracteoles, densely woolly; tepals spreading or slightly reflexed in bisexual flowers, rectangular, 5-8 mm long, ca. 3 mm wide, apex obtuse or rounded, base slightly narrowed, entire; stamens half as long as tepals; ovary glabrous.