WOOTON AND STANDLEY FLORA OF NEW MEXICO. 213 



12. Amaranthus graecizans L. Sp. PI. 990. 1753. Tumbleweed. 

 Amaranthus albus L. Syst. Nat. ed. 10. 2: 1268. 1759. 



Type locality: "Habitat in Virginia." 



Range : A common weed in temperate and subtropical North America. 



New Mexico: Common throughout the State. 



A widely spreading tumbleweed, common in the drier and warmer cultivated parts 

 of the State. Young plants are leafy and rather succulent, but in age the stems be- 

 come rigid, yellowish, and covered with the very numerous spiny fruiting bracts and 

 later, scalelike leaves which are also spiny-tipped. The dead plants form part of the 

 pile of tumbleweeds commonly seen along the fences, where they are associated with 

 the Russian thistle and bugseed. 



13. Amaranthus pubescens (Uline & Bray) Rydb. Bull. Torrey Club 39: 313. 

 1912. 



Amaranthus graecizans pubescens Uline & Bray, Bot. Gaz. 19: 317. 1894. 



Type locality: Silver City, New Mexico. Type collected by Greene in 1880 

 (no. 185). 



Range: New Mexico and Arizona. 



New Mexico: South of Santa Fe; Mule Creek; Cliff; Fort Bayard; chalk hills near 

 Parkers Well. Open hills, in the Upper Sonoran Zone. 



This seems to be one of the most distinct forms of the genus and should certainly 

 receive specific rank. It differs decidedly from A. graecizans in its lower habit, its 

 pubescence, and the crisped leaves. 



2. ACANTHOCHITON Torr. 



An erect branching annual, with glabrous, green and white striped stems and alter- 

 nate lanceolate aristate-tipped leaves; flowers dioecious or sometimes mnncecious, the 

 staminate with 5 sepals but bractless, the pistillate without sepals, subtended by a 

 cordate clasping scale, this accrescent and spiny in fruit. 



1. Acanthochiton wrightii Torr. in Sitgreaves, Rep. Zuiii & Colo. 170. 1853. 



Type locality: Western Texas. 



Range: Western Texas to Arizona. 



New Mexico: Shiprock; Chama River; San Marcial; Deming; Mesilla Valley; 

 Organ Mountains; Jarilla Junction; Sabinal. Sandhills, in the Lower and Upper 

 Sonoran zones. 



Tlie plant might easily be taken for an Amaranthus when in flower, but the fruiting 

 plant is very strongly marked and easily recognized by the enlarged bracts. It is a 

 common garden and roadside weed on sandy soils in the southern part of the State. 



3. CLADOTHRIX Null. 



Diffusely spreading or ascending herbaceous annuals or perennials, densely covered 

 with white stellate pubescence; leaves petiolate, ovate to obovate; flowers very small, 

 yellow, in small axillary clusters. 



key to the species. 



Perennial; stems erect or ascending; leaves truncate or rounded at 



the base 1. C. suffruticosa. 



Annual; stems prostrate; leaves attenuate at the base 2. C. lanuginosa. 



1. Cladotlii-ix suffruticosa (Torr.) Benth. & Hook.; S. Wats. Bot. Calif. 2: 43. 



. 1880. 



Alternanthera ? suffruticosa Torr. U. S. & Mex. Bound. Bot. 181. 1859. 



Type locality: Mountains near Frontera and between the Pecoa and the Limpio, 

 western Texas. 



