Pearly Globe Amaranth

Plants annual, not cespitose, 2-7 dm; roots fibrous. Stems usually erect, pilose or strigose. Leaves sessile or petiolate; petiole to 0.7 cm; blade green, obovate or oblong, 1.5-6 × 0.4-2.5 cm, apex obtuse or acute, pilose. Inflores-cences: heads yellowish white or rarely reddish, subglobose, 12-16 mm diam.; bractlets with laciniate crests. Flowers: tube lanate; perianth lobes white, linear, 4.1 mm, hyaline, apex attenuate. Utricles ovoid, 1.5 mm, apex truncate. Seeds 1.5 mm.

Ariz., N.Mex., Tex.; Mexico.

Flowering late summer-fall.

Moist ground, bottomlands, canyons, rocky open slopes; 500-2000m.

Gomphrena globosa Linnaeus var. albiflora Moquin-Tandon

Gomphrena nitida Rothr. Bot. Wheeler's Surv. 233. 1878
Xeraea nitida Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 545. 1891.
Gomphrena decumbens albi flora Stuchlik, Repert. Sp. Nov. 1 1 : 158, in part. 1912. Not G. decumbens albi flora Chod. & Hassl. 1903.
, Annual, 2-7 dm. high, usually erect, rarely decumbent, much branched or sometimes simple, the branches slender, ascending or suberect, pilose-strigose ; leaves usually few, the nodes distant, short-petiolate, the blades obovate, oblong, or oval, 1.5-6 cm. long, 0.4-2.5 cm. wide, green, obtuse or rounded at the apex, acuminate or attenuate at the base, appressedpilose on both surfaces; spikes subglobose, 12-16 mm. in diameter, usually solitary, terminal, each subtended by 2 leaves, these sessile, acute, usually shorter than the spikes but sometimes longer; bracts ovate-triangular, acuminate, white; bractlets twice as long as the bracts, longattenuate, yellowish-white or rarely tinged with red, cristate from below the apex nearly to the base, the crests laciniate-dentate ; perianth much shorter than the bractlets, copiously lanate, the lobes linear, long-attenuate, white; stamen-tube usually included; style elongate, the stigmas slender; seed 1.5 mm. long, brown.
Type locality: Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona.
Distribution: Dry, stony soil, southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona to Jalisco and Durango.