Amaranthaceae
(Amaranth Family)
Habit
- ours herbs; nodes not swollen; some with
mealy texture
Leaves
-
alternate (rarely
opposite), simple, usually
entire
Inflorescence
- solitary flowers or
cymes aggregated into dense
spikelike clusters
Flowers
-
perfect or
imperfect,
regular, often
subtended by
bractlets
Sepals
- (3-) 5, sometimes
basally connate, often dry and
scarious or
membranous and not green or green and
succulent
Petals
- absent
Stamens
- 3-5,
opposite
sepals
Ovary
-
superior, of 2-3
carpels with 1
locule and usually 1
basal
ovule
Fruit
- an
achene or
utricle or
capsule
Diversity
- 169 genera/2300 species
Distribution
- cosmopolitan especially in deserts and semideserts; an important
constituent of western U.S. deserts; many
halophytes, common in
salt flats, coastal dunes, salt marshes... often with
CAM.
Economics
- food stuffs i.e., sugar beet (Beta); spinach (Spinacea); swiss chard; in Andes Chenopodium quinoa
cultivated for edible leaves and seeds (used like a staple cereal grain; and
C. ambrosioides
(epizote) used in Mexican food; grain amaranth or Inca wheat
cultivated in Andes; a protein rich seed but displaced by colonists'
cereal grains... also some cultivated ornamentals.
Notes on various genera
Chenopodiaceae(Glandular or powdery stems and leaves; 2 bracts surrounding flowers in a few shrubs; sepals are green and variously
appendaged in fruit. Need fruit for accurate identification!!!)
- Atriplex (saltbush): powdery herbs or single sex shrubs; fruit surrounded by 2 powdery bracts
- Bassia (bassia): hairy annuals with hooked spines on hairy sepals in fruit
often confused with Kochia
- Chenopodium (pigweed, goosefoot): herbs often glandular or powdery with 5 green sepals
- Grayia (hopsage): single-sex thorny shurb; fruit surrounded by 2 bracts like Atriplex
- Kochia: ours a hairy annual with wings on sepals
- Krascheninnikovia lanata (winterfat) [=Ceratoides l. =Eurotia l.]
shrub with branched hairs and leaves with inrolled margins; female flowers surrounded by 2 very hairy bracts
- Salsola (Russian thistle, tumbleweed): annual with spine-tipped leaves and sepals that become winged in fruit
- Sarcobatus (greasewood): much-branched thorny shrub with tiny winged sepals surrounding fruit
- Suaeda (sea-blite, seepweed): much-branched not very thorny shrub; sepals not winged
Amaranthaceae (Hairy or smooth stems and leaves; each flower surrounded by 1-3 bracts that are scarious and long pointed or spine-tipped)
- Amaranthus (pigweed, amaranth): mostly annuals with alternate leaves; bracts with scarious margins
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