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AM A R A N T H U S Blitum.
Wild Amaranth.
MONOECIA Pentandria,
G en. Char, Male, Cal. of 3 or 5 leaves. Cor. none.
Starri. 3 or 5 . Female, Cal. of 3 or 5 leaves. Cor.
none. Styles 3. Capsule of 1 cell, splitting all
round. Seed 1,
Spec. Char. Flowers three-cleft and triandrous, in
small lateral tufts. Leaves ovate. Stem diffuse.
Syn. Amaranthus Blitum. Linn. Sp. PI. 1405. Sm.
FI. Brit. 1018. Huds.4: l3. With. 174. Hull,
ed. 2. 279. Iielh. 315.
Blitum rubrum minus. Dill, in Rail Syn. 157.
T h i s dunghill plant is more frequent about London than
elsewhere. Mr. Dickson, to whom we are obliged for our
specimen, gathered it in the rich soil of Battersea fields. It
is annual, bearing its little inconspicuous blossoms in August,
and seeding plentifully in that month and the following.
The habit is rather that of an Atriplex than of such of its
more specious congeners as decorate our gardens. The stem3
however, which spread widely and almost horizontally, sometimes
assume a purple tinge. The leaves are alternate, on long
stalks, ovate, entire, smooth, generally more or less pointed,
sometimes abrupt and emarginate, their edges only slightly
rough. Clusters axillary, leafy, each bearing a few small tufts
of sessile axillary green flowers, whose calyx is of but 3 leaves,
with a corresponding number of stamens in the males, and
often an abortive pistil. The female flowers have no signs of
stamens, but an ovate germen, with 3 recurved downy styles.
Capsule membranous, elliptical, crowned with the withered
styles, and when ripe bursting all round like that of the Plantain,
but containing only 1 lenticular shining seed, which becomes
black when arrived at maturity.—Perhaps what are here
termed styles, after Linnaeus, are rather almost sessile stigmas.