Homely weeds, a good deal like the plants of the last Order, but the flower-clusters are interspersed with dry and chaff-like (sometimes coloured) persistent bracts, usually 3 to each flower.

Synopsis Of The Genera

1. Amaran'tus. Flowers monoecious or polygamous, all with a calyx of 3 or 5 distinct erect sepals.

2. Monte'lia. Flowers dioecious; calyx none in the pistillate flowers.

1. Amaranths. Tourn. Amaranth

1. A. panicula'tus, L. Reddish flowers in terminal and axillary slender spikes, the bracts awn-pointed. - In the neighbourhood of gardens.

2. A. retroflex'us, L. (Pigweed.) Flowers greenish, in spikes, forming a stiff panicle. Leaves a dull green, long-petioled, ovate, wavy-margined. Stem erect. - Common in cultivated soil.

3. A. albus, L. Flowers greenish, in small close axillary clusters. Stem low and spreading. - Roadsides.

2. Monte'lia

Moquin. M. tamaris'cina, Gray. (Acnida ruscocarpa, Gray.) A tall smooth herb, with lanceolate or oblong-ovate alternate leaves on long petioles, and small clusters of greenish flowers in interrupted spikes. - Wet places.

Var. concatenata, Gray, (Acnida tuberculata, Moq.) has the flowers in the lower part of the stem in close clusters in the axils of the leaves.