4.5. POLYGONACE.^. 



131 



segments, usually with a green central nerve ; styles 2-3, 

 persistant on the fruit, which is membranous, with a separ- 

 able pericarp ; seed solitary, depressed-globular, vertical, 

 shining-black. Herbs, with alternate, stalked leaves. 



Fruit wrinkled, iiidohlscent ; perianth- 

 segments 3 A. viridis 1 



Fruit smooth, opening transversely ; perianth- 



segments 5 



A. retroflexvt 2 



1. 



Amarantus viridis, 



L. Green Amaranth. Almost 

 glabrous annual; stem stout, 

 erect, often striped with purple, 

 branching from base ; leaves pale- 

 green, lighter below, oval or 

 oval-oblong, blunt at base and 

 blunt or notched at top ; flowers 

 green, in slender interrupted 

 spikes, lower spikes axillary, 

 upper ones forming a loose, ter- 

 minal, leafless panicle; perianth- 

 segments 3; oval-acuminate, twice 

 as long as the oval bracts ; sta- 

 mens 3 ; ffuit wrinkled, indehis- 

 cent, exceeding the perianth. 



Waste and cultivated land. — 



Jan. -Mar. — Warm parts of Asia. 



2. A. retroflexus, L. 



Downy annual with thick, erect, 

 furrowed stem ; leaves pale- 

 green, often suffused with red. 

 oval or lanceolate ; flowers 

 greenish in thick dense spikes, 

 axillary and in a long terminal panicle ; bracts 

 spreading, st) as to give the spikes a bristlv 



Amarantus viridis. 



awned and 

 appearance, 

 slightly exceeding or nearly twice as long as the 5 perianth- 

 segments, which are oblong-lanceolate, or sometimes blunt 

 and mucronate at the top; .stamens 5; fruit almost smooth, 

 opening by a lid, rather shorter than the perianth. 



Cultivated land. — Dec. -Mar. — Temperate regions of 

 the globe. 



A. ravdatus, L. (Love-lies-bleeding), a stout garden 

 annual, with large, bright-green leaves and long, drooping 

 panicles of red flowers, arranged in slender spikes, is found 

 here and there as an escape. — India. 



Family 45.— POLYGONACE>E. 



Perianth persistant, of 5-6 segments; stamens 4-8, in- 

 serted at the base of the perianth ; styles or style-branches 

 2-3; fruit small, dry, resembling a seed, indehiscent, en- 

 closed in the perianth, 1-celled with 1 erect seed. Mostly 



