Spinacia oleracea

Image Credit:

SpinachBase

Scientific name: Spinacia oleracea

Common name(s): spinach

Name as shown in Phylogenes: spinach

Ploidy: diploid

Description:

Spinacia oleracea (spinach) is an important and nutritious green leafy vegetable and a rich source of carotenoids, folate, vitamin C, calcium and iron. Spinach is a member of the Amaranthaceae family in the order of Caryophyllales, and is a close relative of sugar beet.

Spinach is a great source of purified chloroplasts, and has long been used in the lab to study photosynthesis. High yield, fast growth, slow bolting and disease resistance breeding has been the major focus for its agricultural improvement.

Reference(s):

1. Xu C, et al. Draft genome of spinach and transcriptome diversity of 120 Spinacia accessions. Nat Commun. 2017. 8:15275.

Genome Database(s): 

SpinachBase