AMAEANTACE^. (AMARANTH FAMILY.) 411 



sessile axillary flowers. (Name from sal, salt ; in allusion to the alkaline salts 

 these plants copiously contain.) 



1. S. K^li, L. (Common Saltwort.) Annual, diffusely branching, 

 bushy, rough or smoothish ; leaves all alternate, awl-shaped, prickly-pointed ; 

 flowers single ; calyx with the converging lobes forming a sort of beak over the 

 fruit, the large rose or flesh-colored wings nearly orbicular and spreading. — 

 Sandy sea-shore : common. Aug. (Eu.) 



Order 86. AMARANTACEjE. (Amaranth Family.) 



Weedy herbs, with nearly the characters of the last family, but the flowers 

 mostly imbricated with dry and scarious persistent bracts ; these often colored, 

 commonly 3 in number; the one-celled ovary sometimes many-ovuled. 

 (The greater part of the order tropical, but several have found their way 

 northward as weeds.) 



* Anthers S-celled : filameots separate. Ovule and seed solitary. 



1. Amarantus. Flowers moDceclous or polygamous, all with a calyx of 3 or 5 distinct 



erect sepals, not falling off with the fruit. 



2. Montelia. Flowers dioecious. Calyx none in fertile flowers. Utricle thin, clrcumcissile. 



3. Acnlda. Flowers dioecious. Fruit fleshy, indehiscent, 3 - 5-angled. 



* * Anthers l-ce11ed. Ovule and seed solitary. 



4. Ireslne. Calyx of 5 sepals. Filaments united below into a cup. 



6. Frcelicbla. Calyx 5-cleft at the apex. Filaments united throughout into a tube. 



1. AMARANTUS, Tourn. Amaranth. 



Flowers monoecious or polygamous, 3-bracted. Calyx of 5, or sometimes 3, 

 equal erect sepals, glabrous. Stamens 5, rarely 2 or 3, separate : anthers 2- 

 celled. Stigmas 2 or 3. Fruit an ovoid 1-seeded utricle, 2-3-beaked at the 

 apex, mostly longer than the calyx, opening transversely or sometimes bursting 

 irregularly. Embryo coiled into a ring around the albumen. — Annual weeds, 

 of coarse aspect, with alternate and entire petioled leaves, and small green or 

 purplish flowers in axillary or terminal spiked clusters ; in late summer and 

 autumn. {'Afidpavros, unfading, because the dry calyx and bracts do not wither. 

 The Romans, like the Greeks, wrote Amarantus, which the early botanists in- 

 correctly altered to Amaranthus.) 



§ 1. Utricle thin, circumcissile, the top falling away as a lid: flowers polygamaus. 



# Flowers in tei'minal and axillary simple or mostly panicled spikes: stem erect 



(1°- 6° high) : leaves long-petioled : stamens and sepals 5. 



■1- Red Amaranths. Flowers and often leaves tinged with crimson or purple. 



1. A. hypochondrIacus, L. Smooth or smoothish ; leaves oblong-lanceo- 

 late, acute or pointed ; spikes very obtuse, thick, crowded, the terminal one elon- 

 gated and interrupted ; bracts tong-awned ; fruit 2-Z-cleft at the apex, longer than 

 the calyx. — Rarely spontaneous around gardens. (Virginia, ex L. ; but doubt- 

 less adv. from Trop. Amer.) 



2. A. PANicuLXins, L. Stem mostly pubescent; leaves oblong-ovate or 

 ovate-lanceolate ; spikes numerous and slender, panicled, erect or spreading ; 6rarts 

 awn-pointed ; fruit 2 - 3-toothed at the apex, longer than the calyx. — Flowers 



