A name for certain plants of the Goosefoot tribe, Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus and Atriplex patula. Also, in Australia, applied to various species of Chenopodium and Atriplex which are eaten as vegetables.
1795. Trans. Soc. Encourag. Arts, XIII. 204. Chickweed, fumitory, fat-hen, and persicaria.
1847. Leichhardt, Jrnl., II. 40. The fat-hen … grew abundantly on the reedy flats.
1853. G. Johnston, Nat. Hist. E. Bord., 172. Atriplex patula, Fat Hen.
1863. in Prior, Pop. Names Brit. Plants (1879), 75.
1880. Blackw. Mag., Feb., 182. Fathen [pr. falhen] (a kind of indigenous spinach).
1889. Mrs. Campbell Praed, Romance of a Station, 46. To gather fat-hen, to do duty as cabbage.
