184 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



a cup or tube. Ovary free from the calyx, 1-celled, with 1 or several 

 ovules ; style single, simple, sometimes none ; stigmas lobed, or 



2 to 3 and subfiliform. Fruit generally enclosed in the persistent 

 calyx, usually a utricle bursting irregularly, more rarely splitting 

 circumcissily or still more slender, berry-like. Seeds 1 or few, each 

 one suspended from a funiculus which rises from the base of the ovary ; 

 embryo curved, surrounding fleshy albumen. 



GENUS.— AM AB.ATH TVS* Linn. 



Flowers polygamo-monoecious, each furnished with 3 bracts. Sepals 



3 to 5, rarely 2 to 4, distinct. Stamens 3 to 5, rarely 2 to 4 ; filaments 

 subulate; anthers 2-celled ; barren stamens none. Ovary 1-celled, 

 l-o\ailed ; styles or stigmas 2 or 3, filiform. Fruit a utricle, indehiscent 

 or opening transversely. Seed vertical, lenticular, with a crustaceous 

 testa, destitute of an arillus. 



Herbs Avith altei-nate stalked leaves, frequently tinged with red or 

 purple. Flowers minute, in glomerules arranged in s^Dikes, and these 

 again generally in panicles. 



The derivation of the name of this genus of plants is from the negative a in 

 Greek and the word fiapaivw, to decay ; because the flower does not soon decay when 

 plucked. 



SPECIES I.— AMARANTHS BLITUM. Linn. 

 Plate MCLXXVII. 



Stem glabrous, angular, decumbent, diffusely branched, the branches 

 generally ascending. Leaves on long stalks, rhomboidal- ovate. 

 Flowers in clusters in the axils of the leaves, and in small leafless 

 axillary and terminal interrupted spikes on the upper part of the stem. 

 Calyx 3-partite ; segments obtuse, mucronate, longer than the bracts. 

 Stamens 3 in the male flowers. Styles 3 in the female flowers. Utricle 

 twice as long as the sejDals when ripe, indehiscent. Seed lenticular, 

 shining. 



In rich cultivated ground, and on heaps of manure. Rare. Not 

 even perfectly naturalised. It used to occur in Battersea fields, and 

 is still occasionally to be found on Parson's Green, and elsewhere, to 

 the west of London, but it is not persistent in its stations. It has 

 been found near Cambi'idge, and in Huntingdonshire. 



[England.] Annual. Autumn. 



A coarse plant, -with somewhat the habit of Chenopodium polysper- 



* Frequently incorrectly written Aniaranthus. 



