Slim Amaranth

Amaranthus hybridus L. Sp. PI. 990. 1753
Amaranthus hypocondriacus L. Sp. PI. 991. 1753.
Amaranthus hecticus Willd. Hist. Amaranth. 25. 1790.
Amaranthus strictus Willd. Hist. Amaranth. 27. 1790.
Amaranthus laetus Willd. Hist. Amaranth. 28. 1790.
Amaranthus chlorostachys Willd. Hist. Amaranth. 34. 1790.
Amaranthus retrofiexus hybridus A. Gray, Man. ed. 5. 412. 1867.
Amaranthus retrofiexus chlorostachys A. Gray, Man. ed. 5. 412. 1867.
Amaranthus chlorostachys hybridus S. Wats, in A. Gray, Man. ed. 6. 428. 1890.
Amaranthus hybridus hypocondriacus B. I/. Robinson, Rhodora 10: 32. 1908.
Amaranthus hybridus chlorostachys G. Beck, in Reichenb. Ic. Fl. Germ. 24: 175. 1908.
Galliaria hybrida Nieuwl. Am. Midi. Nat. 3: 278. 1914.
Stems stout, erect or ascending, 3-25 dm. high, usually much branched, the branches ascending, sometimes simple, pale-green, frequently tinged with red, rough-puberulent below or glabrous, usually sparsely villous above, striate or sulcate; leaves usually numerous, the slender petioles 1.5-9 cm. long, pubescent, the blades 3-15 cm. long, 1-7 cm. wide, lanceolate to ovate or rhombic-ovate, acute or rarely rounded at the apex, brightgreen or yellowish, sometimes paler beneath, often tinged with red, pubescent beneath or glabrous, prominently veined; flowers monoecious, in dense, crowded or distant, many-flowered spikes, these paniculate, few or numerous, the lateral ones erect or spreading, 2-6 cm. long, 6-12 mm. thick, the terminal spike twice as long or less, usually stouter, erect; bracts twice as long as the sepals or less, lanceolate to ovate, tapering to slender or stout spinose tips; sepals of the staminate flowers usually 5, narrowly oblong to ovate, acute, scarious, 1-nerved, the nerve usually excurrent; sepals of the pistillate flowers commonly 5, oblong or linear-oblong, 1.5-2 mm. long, acute, or the inner rarely obtuse, 1-nerved, the nerve usually excurrent as a pungent tip, green or tinged with red or purple, equaling or^jhorto than the fruyE> stamens 5; style-branches 3; utricle subglobose, equaling or^shorter than the sepals^ -very rarely exceeding them, thinwalled, often rugulose, circumscissile aE the middle; seed rotund, 1 mm. in diameter, dark reddish-brown or black, shining.
Typb locality: Virginia.
Distribution : Waste and cultivated ground, southeastern Canada, southward nearly throughout the United States, but more abundant eastward; Mexico to Costa Rica; Bermuda; Bahamas; also in the warmer parts of South America; adventive in many parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa.