4. Frœlichia. Calyx 5-cleft. Filaments united into a tube. Flowers spicate.
(Addendum) 5. Cladothrix. Flowers perfect, minute, axillary. Densely white-tomentose.
1. AMARÁNTUS, Tourn. Amaranth.
Flowers monœcious 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 setosely tipped leaves, and small green or purplish flowers in axillary or terminal spiked clusters; in late summer and autumn. (Ἀμάραντος, unfading, because the dry calyx and bracts do not wither. The Romans, like the Greeks, wrote Amarantus, which the early botanists incorrectly altered to Amaranthus.)
§ 1. Utricle thin, circumscissile, the top falling away as a lid; flowers polygamous.
[*] Flowers in terminal and axillary simple or mostly panicled spikes; stem erect (1–6° high); leaves long-petioled; stamens and sepals 5.
[+] Red Amaranths. Flowers and often leaves tinged with crimson or purple.
A. hypochondrìacus, L. Glabrous; leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute or pointed at both ends; spikes very obtuse, thick, crowded, the terminal one elongated and interrupted; bracts long-awned; fruit 2–3-cleft at the apex, longer than the calyx.—Rarely spontaneous about gardens. (Adv. from Trop. Amer.)
A. paniculàtus, L. Stem mostly pubescent; leaves oblong-ovate or ovate-lanceolate; spikes numerous and slender, panicled, erect or spreading; bracts awn-pointed; flowers small, green tinged with red, or sometimes crimson; fruit 2–3-toothed at the apex, longer than the calyx.—Roadsides, etc. (Adv. from Trop. Amer.)
[+][+] Green Amaranths, Pigweed. Flowers green, rarely a little reddish.