AMARANTHACEAE  

Erect shrubs to rarely small trees, some with coppice shoots sprouting from lignotubers. Leaves linear or seldom broadly ovate; petiolate, soft-textured and easily bent at base; dark stipules present; bud leaf colleter a papilla becoming an apiculus, then shrivelling to a black cone or lost. Flowers borne in dense, spherical to very rarely elongate capitula with a narrowly elliptic to broadly clavate receptacle; flowers in each capitulum 80-130; capitula usually in a corymbose panicle; involucral bracts usually ovate to elliptic, mostly with adnate stipules; floral bracts narrowly elliptic to spathulate, usually without stipules; bracteoles 2; floral receptacle with rounded to angular ribs passing down from the sepals. Calyx: sepals free, often linear, sometimes broadly oblong, with a dark apiculus. Corolla white to pale cream or bright red, regular or irregular in lower flowers; petals oblong to narrowly lanceolate or clawed, basally with an adaxial crest; petal margins often with flaps partly enclosing the filaments and lightly adnate to them, forming a tube. Stamens: immature filaments often arched; anther thecae united or partly free and slightly to strongly divergent; pollen grains tricolporate. Nectary apparently 0; nectar rarely present at base of flower; scent usually 0, rarely faint or coffee-like or fishy. Ovary half- to three-quarters-inferior, locules 1 or 2, locules 2 in some peloric flowers, wall between locules often incomplete; ovule 1, rarely 0 or 2 per locule, or ovules sterile as dark flakes in spongy tissue filling locule; styles terete, when 2 then often divergent, stigmas terminal. Fruit comprising expanded ovary wall and attached persistent flower parts, mostly indehiscent, where not so, valves 2-4 and spreading. Seeds usually ellipsoid. x= 10 (aneuploids, high polyploidy).

Glabrous or hairy herbs or subshrubs. Leaves opposite or partly alternate, linear, oblong or occasionally obovate, sessile, entire. Inflorescences terminal heads or spiciform, 1 or 2 flowers together with 1-more flowers reduced to spines, bracteate. Flowers all bisexual, solitary in axils of bracts; bracteoles 2, falling with fruit. Tepals 5, connate at base, coriaceous or chartaceous, ovate or oblong-lanceolate, long-pilose, subequal, outer not long-aristate. Stamens 5, shortly connate below; pseudostaminodes minute 0; anthers 2-thecous. Ovary +/- ovoid, woolly or tomentose; ovule solitary, suspended from apex of elongated funicle; style slender; stigma capitate. Capsule thin-walled, included in perianth, membranous, indehiscent. Seed compressed; embryo annular.

Perennial herbs or subshrubs, prostrate to erect or scandent, trichotomously branched. Leaves opposite or partly alternate, ovate or elliptic-lanceolate, entire. Inflorescences axillary and terminal, sessile to long-pedunculate, bracteate heads or spikes or broad, lax, panicles; bracts persistent, finally spreading or deflexed. Flowers bisexual, solitary in axils of bracts; bracteoles 2, falling with fruit. Tepals 5, free, inner 2 with broader hyaline margin than outer 2, with central intermediate, sometimes gibbous at base, usually pubescent on outer surface. Stamens 5, shortly monadelphous at base, without or rarely with small alternating pseudostaminodes; anthers 2-thecous. Ovary subglobose or oblong in outline; ovule solitary, suspended from a long, basal funicle; style slender but rather short; stigma bifid or capitate. Capsule thin-walled, indehiscent, enclosed in hardened base of perianth. Seed smooth, lenticular, brownish.

Annual herbs. Leaves opposite or alternate, entire. Inflorescences in dense, sessile, solitary or clustered spikes, or flowers solitary in axils of scarious bracts. Flowers bisexual, very small; bracteoles 2, very small. Tepals 3 or 4(5), free, hyaline, villous, with a green band, subtended by 2 very small bracteoles. Stamens 1 or 2; filaments filiform; intermediate pseudostaminodes 0; anthers 2-thecous. Ovary globose-ovoid; ovule solitary, pendulous, radicle ascending; style short; stigma capitate. Capsule delicate, irregularly rupturing. Seed rounded, compressed; perisperm/endosperm copious.

Annual or perennial herbs or subshrubs. Leaves opposite or sometimes alternate, linear to oblong, entire. Inflorescences terminal, elongated, dense spiciform thyrses, bracteate; bracts subtending 2 bisexual flowers flattened at their point of contact and 2 modified lateral sterile flowers formed of long hairs and pilose spines. Tepals 5, oblong to linear, pilose. Stamens 5, free; filaments narrow, monadelphous at base; pseudostaminodes 0; anthers 2-thecous. Ovary woolly; ovule solitary, pendulous, basal; style columnar; stigma small, capitate with a tuft of purplish hairs. Capsule thin-walled, indehiscent. Seed orbicular, flattened.