286 AMARANTH FAMILY. 



94. AMARANTACE-33, AMARANTH FAMILY. 



Weeds and some ornamental plants, chiefly herbs, essentially like 

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

 scarious crowded persistent bracts, and the fruit sometimes several- 

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

 account of their colored dry bracts which do not wither. 



1. Leaves alternate, mostly long-petioled : anthers ^.-celled. 



1. AMARANTHS. Flowers monoecious or polygamous, each \vith.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 1 

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

 2. Leaves opposite : anthers \-celled. 



3. GOMPHRENA. Flowers perfect, chiefly in terminal round heads, crowded 



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

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

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



Achyranthes or Iresine Verschaflfeltii is lately cult, for its red 

 foliage, a poor substitute for Coleus, 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 celosioides, a wild tall Aveed, with opposite leaves, and panicles 

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



Acnida cannabina, 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 unfading.) Coarse 

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

 fl. late summer. Bracts commonly awn-pointed. 



1. RED AMARANTHS, the flower-clusters or the leaves tinged with red or purple. 



A. caudatUS, 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. melanch61icus, 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, flowr-rs and leaves green or greenish. 



A. retroflexus, 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 IS. : dull green leaves 

 Avith a pair of spines in their axils ; floAvers 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 spatuflite leaves, flowers all in small clusters in their axils and covered by 

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



