Kochia: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this genus.   

	herbs, or low spineless shrubs; NOT [spiny shrub, 1-2 m high]
	plants not prickly; NOT [plant prickly from the spine-tipped thread-like leaves and from bracts]
	stems not fleshy
	stems not jointed
	stems tomentose to densely glandular-villous; NOT [stems not tomentose to densely villous]
	leaves mostly alternate; NOT [leaves opposite]
	leaves not reduced to scales
	leaves narrow, linear; NOT [leaves broad, often hastate], NOT [leaves flat, wavy-edged, ovate]
	leaves usually turning red when mature
	NOT [flowers axillary and sunk into the fleshy stem]
	flowers not subtended by scarious bracts
	flowers lacking bracteoles; NOT [pistillate flowers with a pair of bracteoles, occasionally 3]
	calyx with 5 sepals
	sepals greenish, herbaceous or fleshy; NOT [sepals scarious, dry and membranous]
	calyx in fruit developing horizontal scarious wings but not slender hooked spines
	flowers perfect or pistillate
	5 stamens

Amaranthaceae: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora leading to this family.  Not all the answers apply to all the genera in Amaranthaceae, but they all do apply to Kochia. 

	herbs; NOT [shrubs or trees]
	land plants; NOT [water plants]
	plants not parasitic on trees, rooted in soil
	plants with more than one pair of leaves
	leaves alternate, lower ones sometimes opposite; NOT [leaves opposite]
	leaves without stipules; NOT [leaves with stipules free or sheathing the stem]
	leaves not compound and not very deeply divided; NOT [leaves compound or simple, but very deeply divided]
	leaves not orbicular or reniform; NOT [leaves orbicular or reniform]
	flowers small, numerous, greenish; NOT [flowers colored]
	flowers with only one floral ring, with sepals but not petals
	perianth segments 2-5; NOT [perianth segments 6]
	flowers perfect
	fruit dry when ripe; NOT [fruit fleshy when ripe]