| Dicotyledon | Literature for Amaranthus viridis
Wagner et al., 1990, 1999; Lorence & Wagner, 2020; Faccenda et al., 2025. |
| Amaranthaceae -- The Amaranth, Goosefoot Family | Bibliography |
| Amaranthus viridis | |
Common name(s): amaranth, pigweed, `aheahea, pakai, pakaikai, pakapakai (Ni`ihau), slender amaranth |
| General Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | Widespread in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.In the Hawaiian Islands, naturalized on Kure, Midway, Laysan, Ni`ihau, Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Kaho`olawe, Hawai`i. | |
| Habit |
Annual, monoecious herb; stems erect or occasionally ascending, 1.5-6 dm long, sparingly to densely branched, striate, glabrous and usually becoming pubescent with multicellular hairs above. |
|
| Leaves |
Leaves petiolate; blade ovate, ovate-elliptic, or rhombic 2‒12 cm long, 1.5‒5.5 cm wide, glabrous or abaxial surface pilose along the veins, apex usually narrow and with a small narrow emargination; petiole 1‒9 cm long. |
|
| Flowers |
Inflorescences a slender, axillary or terminal and often paniculate spike, sometimes in axillary clusters in proximal part of plant, both sexes mixed throughout the spikes, but pistillate flowers more numerous; bracts and bracteoles whitish, deltate-ovate to broadly lanceolate, membranous, with a short, pale or reddish awn. Flowers green, sepals 3(4), those of staminate flowers ovate-oblong, ca. 1.5 mm long, apex acute, mucronate, those of pistillate flowers oblong or narrowly spatulate, 0.8‒1.7 mm long, apex ± mucronate; stigmas 2‒3. |
|
| Fruit |
Fruit subglobose, 1.3‒1.5 mm long, not or only slightly exceeding the sepals, indehiscent or rupturing irregularly at maturity, conspicuously rugose throughout. |
|
| Seeds |
Seeds dark brown to black, ± shiny, slightly compressed, 1‒1.3 mm long, reticulate and with shallow outgrowths on the reticulum. |
|
| Chromosomes |
2n = 34. |
|
| Contributor |
Warren Wagner |
