Leafy greens include spinach, lettuce (ball lettuce, loose leaf lettuce, stem lettuce), chives, parsley, celery, water spinach (cabbage), coriander (cilantro), greens (bok choy), fennel, sunflower (mullein), amaranth, leafy capers, corns, shepherd's purse, purple-backed asparagus, basil (thorns), chrysanthemum brain, sugar beet (kohlrabi) and so on. Among them, spinach, lettuce, mustard, rape, water spinach, amaranth and coriander belong to the popular common food dishes, with large planting area and wide range of suitability; coriander and basil belong to the fragrant and spicy seasoning dishes; drop sunflower, purple-backed sunflower and chrysanthemum brain belong to the rare dishes, with small planting area; leafy mustard (potherb mustard) belongs to the pickling dishes; caper in the past, mostly for the early spring in the field in the field of the wild vegetables, in recent years, the breeding of large-leafed caper has been changed from wild to cultivated; leafy sugar beet because of the wild vegetables, and the cultivation of the beet. In recent years, the cultivated large-leafed sugar beet has been transformed from wild to cultivated; the leafy sugar beet, because of its wide adaptability, not easy to shoot in the spring, and high yield, was often used as a supplemental light vegetable in April, but because of its poor palatability, the planting area has gradually shrunk, and is now difficult to see in the market, and there are still a very small amount of planting in some rural areas belonging to the traditional planting sites in the past.

Leafy greens can be divided into two categories according to the temperature requirements. A class for the cool, such as rape, celery, leeks, lettuce, spinach, coriander, fennel, capers, chrysanthemum brain, etc., the growth period of their products and organs suitable for the cool season in spring and autumn, the seedling period of cold resistance is strong, most of the Yellow River Basin can be over winter in the open ground in the following spring harvested one after another in small batches. Especially spinach, caper, leek cold resistance, in the north of China can be seedlings overwintering. Another category for water spinach, drop sunflower, amaranth, purple back anemone, etc. like warmth, and have a certain degree of heat resistance, can be picked in the summer.