590 CHENOPODIACE^S amaranthus 



late, pungent-pointed, spreading, much longer than the 3 membranaceous 

 sepals: stamens 3: utricle wrinkled, longer than the sepals, circumscissile 

 common in fields and waste places : naturalized from tropical America. 



A. carneus Greene Pitt, ii, 105. "Monoecious: glabrous, prostrate, 

 forming a mat 6-10 inches broad, the branches pinkish, the glomerules of 

 flowers and lower face of leaves deep flesh-purple: plant leafy and florifer- 

 ous throughout: leaves obovate-lanceolate, entire, setose-tipped, )-£-% inch 

 long, tapering to a short petiole : bracts ovate-acuminate and setose-tipped : 

 utricle smooth: seed black and shining, % line wide. Beaver Canyon, Idaho.' 



* * * Sepal 1, Bract 1. 

 A. Californicus Watson Bot. Cal, ii, 42. Prostrate or ascending, 

 glabrous, branching at the base, the stems often a foot long or more, with 

 numerous short branchlets : leaves obovate to oblong, an inch long or less 

 including the petiole, often small, obtuse or acutish, with white veins and 

 margin : flowers green or reddish, in numerous small dense axillary clus- 

 ters: bracts often membranaceous and inconspicuous, lanceolate, acumin- 

 ate slightly or not at all exceeding the utricle: sepal of the staminate flow- 

 ers % line long, that of the fertile flower shorter and narrower, lateral : 

 utricle slightly rugose, tardily circumscissile : seed half a line broad. Idaho 

 to California and Southern Oregon. 



Order LXXVIII CHENOPODIACE^E Dumort. 

 Anal. Fam 15. (1829.) 

 Herbs or shrubs with alternate or rarely opposite leaves 

 without stipules and small greenish flowers mostly in axillary 

 and terminal panicles or racemes. Flowers perfect, monoeci- 

 ous or dioecious. Calyx persistent, 2-5-lobed or 2-5-parted, 

 rarely reduced to a single sepal, or wanting in pistillate flowers. 

 Stamens as many as lobes or divisions of the calyx, or fewer, 

 opposite them : filaments slender : anthers 2 celled, longitudin- 

 ally dehiscent. Ovary mostly superior and free from the calyx, 

 1-celled, with a solitary amphitr op ous or campylotropous ovule 

 on a stipe rising from its base: styles 1-3, with capitate stig- 

 mas. Fruit an achene or utricle. Embryo slender, either 

 annular and surrounding the mealy albumen, or spiral with the 

 albumen lateral or wanting. 



Tribe i Flowers perfect, without bracts. Seeds free. 



1 Nitrophila Perennial herbs with opposite leaves and axillary flowers. 



2 Kochia Perennial herbs with scattered terete or linear leaves and 



axillary flowers. 



3 Chenopodium Annual or perennial herbs with mostly thin leaves : 



flowers somewhat panicled. 



4 Blitum Annual herbs with broad thin leaves : flowers in dense spicate 



clusters. 



5 JWonolepis Low annuals with the flowers densely clustered in the 



axils: sepal 1, bract like: stamen 1 : fruit naked: seeds vertical. 



Tribe ii Flowers monoecious or dioecious, bracted. Seeds free. 



* Bracts compressed : testa of the seeds mostly coriaceous. 



(> Atriplex Fruiting bracts with margins often dilated and the sides 

 often muricate. 



