Amaranthaceae
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Family
Amaranthaceae (Magnoliophyta)
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Scientific Name
Amaranthaceae
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Common Names
Amaranth Family
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Description
Number of genera: 65
Number of species: 900
Description (from PLANTAE): Usually herbs, sometimes suffrutescent vines or shrubs, sometimes succulent. Stipules absent. Stems sometimes with anomalous secondary growth (concentric cambial rings), the nodes sometimes swollen. Leaves alternate or opposite, simple; blade margins usually entire. Monoecious or dioecious. Inflorescences usually bracteate, the flowers solitary or usually cymose, the cymes grouped into panicles, thyrses, spikes or heads. Flowers usually small, bisexual or unisexual, usually actinomorphic, sometimes modified into hooks or bristles, bracteate and bracteolate, the bracts and bracteoles often scarious and resembling the tepals, the bracts 1, usually persistent, the bracteoles 2; perianth uniseriate, the tepals 3–5, free or partially connate, often scarious; androecium uniseriate, the stamens usually 5 (generally equal in number to tepals), opposite the tepals, free or connate for all or part of their length into a tube, the tube often membranous, often with apical appendages (pseudostaminodia) alternating with the stamens; gynoecium syncarpous, the ovary superior, the carpels 2 or 3, the locules 1, the placentation basal, the ovule usually 1, sometimes several, the styles 1-3. Fruit usually an urticle or circumscissile capsule, sometimes a nutlet, achene, berry or drupe. Seeds shiny, black, the embryo curved.
Taxonomic notes (from PLANTAE): It is believed that the basic flower pattern is a dichasiam in which the lateral flowers are lost, but the bracts remain.
Distribution (from PLANTAE): Tropical and subtropical regions of the world, most abundant in tropical America and Africa.
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Floras and Monographs
Amaranthaceae: [Book] Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
