362 AMARANTH FAMILY. 



rather slender purplish-tinged spikes collected in a terminal panicle. 

 Trop. Amer. 



A. Gangeticus, Linn. Cult, from E. Asia in many forms, usually under 

 the name A. MELANCHOLICCS or LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING, or in the form 

 (used for carpet bedding) with foliage marked with red, violet, or yellow, 

 as A. TRICOLOR. Often rather low, the stems and stalks red ; leaves 

 ovate and thin, petioled, dark purple or partly green ; or in a form grown 

 by the American Chinese as a pot herb, the herbage is entirely green. 

 Flowers mostly glomerate, on axillary and terminal branches. 



* * GREEN AMARANTHS, with the inflorescence and leaves green or nearly so. 

 t- Plant not spiny. 

 w Tall and erect. 



A. retroflxus, Linn. PIGWEED, BEETROOT. A weed everywhere in 

 cultivated lands, with a slender red root ; roughish or pubescent, the 

 leaves ovate or rhomb-ovate, with more or less undulate margins, long- 

 petioled, dull green, entire ; spikes thick and crowded into a stiff or 

 bunchy panicle ; sepals acute or obtuse. Trop. Amer. 



A. chlordstachys, Willd., also a common weed, is smoother and deeper 

 green, and has slender or flexuose spikes which are more spreading ; sepals 

 generally sharper. Trop. Amer. 



M. ++ Decumbent or low and diffuse. 



A. albus. Linn. TCMBLEWEED. Pale green and smooth, the plant 

 low and diffusely branched, in autumn often forming a ball-like mass and 

 rolling before the wind ; leaves obovate and spatulate ; flowers all in 

 small clusters in their axils and covered by rigid sharp-pointed bracts ; 

 sepals 3 ; stamens 2 or 3. Common in waste grounds. 



A. blitoldes, Watson. Wild W. of the Mississippi and becoming a 

 weed along roadsides and railroads E. ; prostrate or decumbent, often 

 reddish, forming a mat ; spikes narrow ; bracts short-acuminate ; seed 

 larger than in the last. 



- -- Plant with a pair of spines in the axil of each leaf. 



A. sp/ndsus, Linn. THORNY A. Waste ground, chiefly S. ; leaves 

 dull green, rhomb-ovate or ovate-lanceolate ; flowers small, yellowish- 

 green, in round axillary clusters and in a long terminal spike. Trop. 

 Amer. 



3. ACNIDA, WATER HEMP. (Greek for nettle.) Three or four 

 confused species in our territory. The commonest are 



A. cannabina, Linn. Salt marshes along the coast ; a tall annual, 

 like an Amaranth ; bracts inconspicuous, and the fleshy indehiscent fruit 

 3-o-angled and crested ; leaves lanceolate or narrower, acuminate and 

 long-slalked ; fruit indehiscent. 



A. tuberculata, Moq. In wet places, Mich., W. and S., not in salt 

 marshes ; generally tall and erect (low and decumbent forms) with lance- 

 olate, acute, or obtuse leaves, and regularly dehiscing fruit ; pistillate 

 flowers in dense clusters, in naked or leafy terminal spikes. (I) 



4. TEL ANTHERA. (Greek : complete anthers, referring to the 10 

 bodies being equal.) 



7". Bettzichiana, Regel. (ALTERNANTHERA PARONYCHIOIDES of gar- 

 deners). A familiar bedding and edging plant from S. Amer. ; compact, 

 only a few inches high, with narrow spatulate or oblanceolate leaves, 

 which are blotched with orange, red, or crimson, or shaded with dull 

 purple. (J) 



