fat-hen

Definitions

noun A name applied to various plants, especially to chenopodiaceous plants with fleshy leaves, as Chenopodium album and C. Bonus-Henricus. In Australia a kind of indigenous spinach, perhaps Tetragonia expansa.

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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A list of the top 18 of "the world's most serious weeds," compiled in 1977, has just three European plants—fat-hen, field bindweed and wild oats.

Why We Must Learn to Love Weeds Richard Mabey 2011
In the fat-hen flats, over which we travelled in following the watercourse to Zamia creek, I was surprised to find Erythrina, which I had been accustomed to meet with only on the creeks, and at the outskirts of mountain brushes, near the sea-coast.

Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia : from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845 Ludwig Leichhardt 1830
We travelled during the day in a westerly direction over a level country, partly covered with reeds and fat-hen, and came to a broad sandy creek, which turned to the south-east and south.

Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia : from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845 Ludwig Leichhardt 1830
After proceeding with great difficulty about three miles, we found that the gullies opened into a broad flat valley; in which fields of fat-hen, the Croton shrub, the native Tobacco, Erythrina, fine specimens of flooded-gum, Tristania, and the Moreton Bay ash, were growing in great abundance.

Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia : from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845 Ludwig Leichhardt 1830