AMARANTOIDE*. 51 



perianth rose-purple, 6—8 lines long: fr. 4—5 lines long, nearly glabrous, 

 the body oblong, attenuate at each end; wings thin, nearly as long, 

 broadest above, narrowing toward the base: aehene 1% lines long. — 

 Sandy places along the seaboard. June— Oct. 



* * Wings thicker, the central cavity of the fruit extending through them. 



2. A. latifolia, Esoh. Perennial, stout and succulent, very viscid, the 

 stems prostrate, 1—2 ft. long: leaves broadly ovate or reniform, %—l% 

 in. long, obtuse: peduncles usually exceeding the leaves: bracts 5, 

 rounded to ovate 6r oblong, 2—4 lines long: perianth 5—6 lines long, 

 yellow: fr. 4—6 lines long, coriaceous, acute at each end; wings usually 

 narrow. — Plentiful along the seashore. May — Dec. 



Order XVII. AMARANTOIDE/E. 



Herbs with simple exstipulate leaves, and small inconspicuous (mostly 

 greenish) axillary solitary or clustered perfect or unisexual flowers. 

 Calyx of 3 — 5 hypogynous more or less scarious persistent sepals, occa- 

 sionally with a pair of bractlets at base, generally enveloped by dry and 

 almost chaffy bracts. Corolla 0. Stamens usually 5 or more, distinct or 

 monadelphous. Stigmas 2 or 3, sessile on an undivided style. Fruit 

 utricular, sometimes circumscissile, or bursting irregularly. Seed small, 

 compressed, vertical. Embryo curved. 



1. AMARASTUS, Dodoenn. Annual weeds; leaves alternate, usually 

 broad, veiny, and tipped with a short sharp mucro. Flowers green or 

 purplish, in axillary spiked clusters or spikelets, the staminate usually 

 mingled with the pistillate in the same cluster. Sepals distinct or 

 united at base, seldom less than 3 or more than 5, more or less scarious, 

 erect, or the tips spreading. Stamens as many as the sepals, distinct. 

 Stigmas linear. Utriole ovate, 2 — 3 beaked, circumscissile or indehiscent 

 often deciduous with the perianth. 



* Stems erect; sepals 5 or 3. 



1. A. retroflextjs, L. Stout, 1 — 4 ft. high, paniculately branched 

 above; herbage dull green, roughish and more or less pubescent: leaves 

 ovate or rhombic-ovate, 1—4 in. long, on slender petioles: fl. green, in 

 erect or somewhat spreading nearly cylindrical spikes: bracts lanceolate- 

 subulate, scarious except the green carinate midrib, attenuate to a rigid 

 awn, 13^—3 lines long: sepals 5, narrowly oblong, mostly acute or even 

 mucronate, exceeding the utricle: seed *4 line broad, black and shining, 

 with a rather obtuse margin. — Gardens and waste lands. 



2. A. AiiBUS, L. Erect, J^ — 2 ft. high, rigidly and widely branched 

 from the base; herbage of a light green, glabrous or nearly so: leaves 



