286 AMARANTH FAMILY. 



94. AMARANTACE^, AMARANTH FAMILY. 



Weeds and some ornamental plants, chiefly herbs, essentially like 

 the foregoing family, but the flowers provided with dry and mostly 

 scarious crowded pei'sistent bracts, and the fruit sometimes several- 

 seeded. The cultivated sorts are ornamental, like Immortelles, on 

 account of their colored dry bracts which do not wither. 



§ 1. Leaves alternate, mostly long-peiioled : anthers 2-celled. 



1. AMARANTUS. Flowers monoecious or polygamous, each with 3 bracts. 



Calyx of 5, or sometimes 3, equal erect sepals, smooth. Stamens 5, some- 

 times 2 or 3. Stigmas 2 or 3. Ovule solitary, on a stalk from the base of the 

 ovary. Fruit an utricle, 2-3-pointed at apex, usually opening all round 

 transversely, the upper part falling off as a lid (Lessons, p. 130, fig. 298), 

 discharging the seed. Flowers in axillary or terminal spiked clusters. 



2. CELOSIA. Flowers perfect. Ovules and seeds numerous. Otherwise nearly 



as Amarantus, but the crowded spikes imbricated with shining colored 

 bracts. In cultivation the spikes are often changed into broad crests. 

 § 2. Leaves Cfpposite : anthers 2-celled. 



3. GOMPHRENA. Flowers perfect, chiefij'^ in terminal round heads, crowded 



with the firm colored bracts. Calyx 5-parted or of 5 sepals. Stamens 5, 

 monadelphous below: filaments bi-oad, 3-cleft at summit, the middle lobe 

 bearing a 1-celled anther (Lessons, p. 114, fig. 239). Utricle 1-seeded. 



Achyr^nthes or Iresine Verschaff61tii is lately cult, for its red 

 foliage, a poor substitute for Colons, except in shade, where it has clear red 

 stems, its ovate or roundish opposite leaves strongly veined or blotched with red, 

 or wholly crimson. 



Iresine oelosioides, a wild tall weed, with opposite leaves, and panicles 

 of small white-woolly flowers, is common S. W. 



Acnlda cann^biua, in salt-marshes along the coast, is a tall annual, like 

 an Amaranth, but dioecious, bracts inconspicuous, and the fleshy indehiscent 

 fruit 3 - 5-angled and crested. 



1. AMARANTUS, AMARANTH. (From Greek for Mw/arfingr.) Coarse 

 weeds of cult, and waste grounds, and one or two cuMvated for ornament : 

 fl. late summer. Bracts commonly awn-pointed. ® 



§ 1. Red Amaranths, the flower-clusters or the leaves tinged with red or purple. 



A. caudktUS, Princes' Feather. Cult, from India : tall, stout ; leaves 

 ovate, bright green ; spikes red, naked, long and slender, in a drooping panicle, 

 the terminal one forming a very long tail. 



A. hypochondriacus. Cult, from Mexico, &c. : stout ; leaves oblong, 

 often reddish-tinged ; flower-clusters deep crimson-purple, short and thick, the 

 upper making an interrupted blunt spike. 



A. paniculatUS. Coarse weed in gardens : the oblong-ovate or lance- 

 oblong leaves often blotched or veined with purple ; flowers in rather slender 

 purplish-tinged spikes collected in an erect terminal panicle. 



A. melaneholicus, Love-lies-Bleeding. Cult, from China or India : 

 rather low ; stems and stalks red ; the ovate thin leaves dark purple or partly 

 green ; or, in var. tricolor, greenish with red or violet and yellow variously 

 mixed ; sepals and stamens only 3. 



§ 2. Green Amaranths, or Pigweeds, flowers and leaves green or greenish, 



A. retrofldxus, Common Pigweed : erect, roughish-pubescent or smooth- 

 er ; spikes crowded in a stiff panicle, the awn-pointed bracts rigid. 



A. spin6sus, Thorny A. Waste ground, chiefly S. : dull green leaves 

 with a pair of spines in their axils ; flowers small, yellowish-green, in round 

 axillary clusters and in a long terminal spike. 



A. albus. Roadsides and streets, spreading over the ground ; with obovate 

 and spatulatc leaves, flowers all in small clusters in their axils and covered by 

 rigid sharp-pointed bracts j sepals 3 ; stamens 2 or 3. 



