DESCRIPTIONS OF SOME COMMON WEEDS 



171 



bracts subulate, much longer than the cuspidate sepals. 

 Native to tropical America ; not as abundant as the pre- 

 ceding, in waste places. The spiny amaranth (Amaranthus 

 spinosus) has a stout stem with ovate or rhombic ovate 

 leaves, with a pair of rigid stipular spines at each node ; 

 flowers in capitate, axillary clusters and monoecious. The 

 tumbleweed (Amaranthus albus) is 

 smooth and pale green, stems erect 

 or ascending, branching, sepals 

 acuminate, bracts pungently point- 

 ed, seeds small. Common through- 

 out eastern North America. The 

 prostrate pigweed (Amaranthus 

 blitoides) is like the last, but pros- 

 trate; it has contracted spikelets 

 with obtuse or acute sepals. A 

 common weed in wet ground along 

 roadsides. 



Water Hemp (Acnida tubercu- 

 lata, Moq.). Tall, erect herb with 

 lanceolate leaves, usually acute or 

 acutish ; flowers dioecious ; sepals 

 of the staminate flowers lanceolate ; 

 pistillate flowers clustered in more 

 or less dense, naked, or leafy axil- 

 lary, or terminal spikes; seeds -smooth and shining. A 

 very common weed in low grounds, especially in sandy soil. 



Juba Bush (Iresine paniculate, (L.) Kuntze). Closely 

 related to the above, is a tall herb with opposite petioled 

 leaves and small three-bracted white flowers produced in 

 large terminal panicles, flowers very numerous, calyx of 

 five sepals, pistillate, woolly, flowers white. Its distribu- 

 tion, from Ohio to Kansas, Texas to Florida. 



Froelichia (Froclichia floridana, Moq.). Very woolly, 

 stem nearly leafless, one to three feet high, with annual 

 root; lanceolate leaves, silky and downy beneath ; flowers 



Fig. 105. Orach (Atri- 

 plex patula, L.). 



