Bulletin University of New Mexico—No. 49 
small perfect or unisexual flowers usually subtended 
by scarious bracts and with a persistent calyx of one to 
five more or less scarious sepals. There are probably 
other genera within our limits but I have collected only 
these. 
AmarantTuus, Ll. Amarianth. 
With thin alternate leaves; small greenish or pur- 
plish flowers with 1 or 3 bracts in axillary or terminal 
spikes, like clusters, and 2-celled anthers (most of the 
genera have 1-celled anthers. ) 
Utical (pod) thin, with a lid at the top. 
- - - - A. RETROFLEXUS. 
Utrical bursting ; leaves with spiny acails, 
- - - - - A. sSPINOSUS. 
A. rETROFLExUS, LZ. Rough more or less pubescent, 
erect 1 to 6 feet high, leaves dull green long petioled, 
ovate, undulate; flowers green in thick spikes crowded 
in a head-like panicle, petals and stamens 5; _ bracts 
pointed, rigid, longer than the acute or obtuse sepals. 
A. sprnosus, L. Thorny Amaranth. 
Smooth, bushy; redish stem; leaves rhombic-ovate 
or ovate-lanceolate, dull green, a pair of spines in the 
axils; flowers yellowish-green, monoecious. Yards 
about town, perhaps introduced. 
57. POLYGONACEAE. (Bucxwueat Famity. 
Herbaceous or woody plants, with alternate, e ntire, 
leaves; stipules form sheath about the swollen joints 
of the stem or are absent; mostly perfect flowers on 
jointed pedicels, a persistent 3 to 6-cleft calyx; a 1- 
celled ovary with 2 or 3 styles or stigmas and a single 
erect seed ; 4 to 9 stamens; fruit an achene, com'pressed 
or 3 or 4-angled. 
Flowers with an involucre ; stamens 9; stipules nont,, 
- - - - (1) Ertogonum. 
Flowers without an mvolucre ; stamens 4 to 8 ; stipules 
forming sheaths. 
Sepals 5, equal and erect in frnit, achenes tri- 
angular or lenticular, - (2)Potyconum. 
Sepals 6, the outer row reflexed, the inner erect 
and enlarged in fruit, - - (8) Rumex. 
1. Ertoconum, Mz. 
Herbaceous or a little woody, leaves radical alter- 
nate or verticillate; involucre bell-shaped with — sev- 
eral exserted flowers , compressed of 4 to 8 pointless 
(85) 
