Upright Goosefoot (Chenopodium urbicum)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vascular plant > flowering plant > Herbaceous plant |
| Red List Status: | Critically Endangered (Not Relevant) [CR(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Oxybasis urbica |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (L.) S.Fuentes, Uotila & Borsch |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | in Stroh et al., 2014 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Assessed as CR in England due to an 85% decline in AOO (Stroh et al. 2014), Atlas 2020 has revealed a slight increase in this species since 2000, possibly through its introduction in seed mixes used for wild bird food and game cover (though recent records also include rubbish tips, manure heaps and road verges). Nevertheless, it remains very rare with just 36 sites recorded since 2000 and 19 since 2016. These include a few demonstration sites where reintroductions are managed as part of the Species Recovery Trust Archaeophyte Project. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | This species still appears sporadically as a casual in a range of sites (e.g. fields, soil heaps, dung heaps, gardens and road verges), with the exact mode of origin not always clear. Ensuring its long-term survival will probably depend on management of sites where it has been deliberately introduced, as has been trialled by the Species Recovery Trust. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | It's likely that suitable sites for this species will always exist in the landscape and the species opportunistically moves between these in some areas (e.g. around Ampleforth and Yearsley in North-east Yorkshire). Management actions should be targeted in these areas and elsewhere where the species appears. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 6. Recovery solutions trialled |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Life history factor/s |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | This species is proving to be very difficult to manage deliberately, with lots of factors contributing to challenges with successful reintroduction (e.g. palatability of plants, poor competitors, failure of seedlings when repotted). However, Natural England are funding The Species Recovery Trust to study this species and this work needs to continue until self-sustaining populations can be established. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Continue to trial reintroduction to demonstration sites to build a better understanding of how the species behaves and its requirements, allowing reintroduction to a wider range of sites (in terms of habitats and geographically).
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: (Re-)introduction
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites: Butser Ancient Farm
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Extend the number of reintroduction sites for the species and continue to augment and monitor populations until they are self-sustaining.
Action targets: 8. Species recovering
Action type: (Re-)introduction
Duration: 6-10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Assess adequacy and supplement if necessary adequacy of seed banking at Kew's Millenium Seedbank so seed is available for future research and propagation for reintroduction into further sites.
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Ex situ conservation
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.