fat hen

Plant belonging to the goosefoot family, widespread in temperate regions. It grows up to 1 m/3 ft tall and has lance- or diamond-shaped leaves and compact heads of small inconspicuous flowers. Now considered a weed, fat hen was once valued for its fatty seeds and edible leaves. (Chenopodium album, family Chenopodiaceae.)

Skylarks favour the plant fat hen, and rely on its seeds during autumn and winter. UK ecologists, in autumn 2000, concluded that herbicide-resistant GM crops, which would lead to the wiping out of fat hen on farm land, would also lead to a reduction of 80% in the number of skylarks, whose numbers have already been reduced by half since the 1960s.