What's this (possibly) green leafy vegetable?

[gtarman]

Sorry in advance for my crappy phone's crappy picture quality...I'm too poor to afford an actual proper camera

So I bought this plant from a local nursery labelled as "Brazilian Spinach"...when buying it I thought that it didn't look anything like the Brazilian Spinach I've seen before (aka "Sissoo Spinach - Alternanthera sissoo), which is quite shiny and succulent and very wavy in appearance..this is what Brazilian Spinach is supposed to look like (pics of my plant further down)

...but I thought maybe the one in the nursery was just really stressed and dehydrated so I bought it and assumed it would go all curly and succulent again once it recovered. But it has stayed exactly the way it was, and now I have no idea what it is. The tiny white (and unfortunately blurry) clusters around the nodes are flowers/seedheads - they look kinda like grass seeds in small tight clusters arranged sort of like a clover flower I guess.

I've eaten a leaf once or twice since getting it and they were quite tough and crunchy.

This is the one I bought from the nursery:

Like I said, the photo quality is crappy. The flowers look sort of like those of Alternanthera caracasana (pictured below), although the generally different appearance of my plant and the fact that the flowers are shorter make me doubt that mine is the caracasana.

Any thoughts? This nursery is run by volunteers so they often seem to label things rather stupidly. Whilst there I also saw some Canna edulis labelled as "Ceylon Spinach"

Edited December 9, 2013 by gtarman

[Bert&Ernie]

man im so confused...... is that last pic one of yours or an example? also the top few pics are just an example as well?

and all the middle pics are the plant you bought?

The pics you posted are very bad haha so its kinda hard to tell what it is....

Looks kinda like a basil of some sort but i have no idea really!

If you could please try and take some clearer shots and maybe a bit closer with all its features that would help us all ID it correctly

[gtarman]

It's not that confusing lol..I prefaced every image set saying exactly what it was an image of

The ones in the middle are my plant. And that's as good as the image quality gets unfortunately, believe me I tried. Oh well...I should probably just chuck them in the compost I guess, they may not even be edible and I don't like having un-ID'd things in my herb garden. I can't use them when I dunno what they are

[tarenna]

Doh!

Edited December 9, 2013 by tarenna

[tarenna]

Is it a specimen grown in more exposed conditions/with less available nutes...??

[gtarman]

^ that's what I thought, but the more I look at it it seems like a completely different plant. And it's had plenty of nutes and moisture now and only partial sun for nearly a month, and the new growth looks the same as the old

It has no distinctive taste or scent to speak of either, I should add. But if I can't work out what it is in the next couple days they're going the way of ol' Yella', and I'll track down some real Brazilian spinach plants. Or just plant something else.

Edited December 9, 2013 by gtarman

[Bert&Ernie]

Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing haha!

Hmmm.... Still have no idea. Sorry i couldn't help!

[gtarman]

All good

[tarenna]

I have some real-deal Alternanthera sissoo if needed..