Amaranthaceae

Pigweed Family

By: George Rogers

A worldwide herbaceous family of some 50 genera and 500 species of annual and

perennial often-weedy herbs or shrubs with alternate or opposite leaves, the blades

frequently with conspicuously curving veins. Flowers small, often among numerous dry

and papery bracts, the leaves and/or bracts often colorful. Petals absent; sepals and

stamens 5. Fruit tiny, dry.

Key to Amaranthaceae Important in South Florida Landscaping

1. Leaves alternate, usually green…Celosia (flowers in panicles, spikes, or in a

cockscomb)

1. Leaves opposite, usually colorful (may be green with white veins)…2

2. Flowers in globose heads…3

2. Flowers in loose panicles…Iresine

3. Globose heads white, not showy, not subtended by bracts…Alternanthera

3. Globose heads showy, colorful (rarely white), subtended by two leafy

bracts…Gomphrena

Other plants in the manual include:

Alternanthera philoxeroides

Amaranthus blitum

Chenopodium album