Nealley's Globe Amaranth

Plants perennial, not cespitose, 1-4 dm; roots primary, fusiform, fleshy. Stems erect or ascending, pilose. Leaves sessile; blade green, obovate to oblong or spatulate, 1.5-4 × 0.6-1.5 cm, apex round-ed, pilose-sericeous abaxially. Inflorescences: heads white or pinkish, subglobose to short-cylindric, 10-12 mm diam.; bractlets crested along keels. Flowers: tube densely lanate; perianth lobes stramineous, lanceolate, 4.5-4.7 mm, indurate, apex spinose-tipped. Utricles ovoid, 2 mm, apex acute. Seeds subglobose to ovoid, 1.5-1.6 mm.

Tex.

Flowering winter-summer.

Grasslands, sandy soils; 0-10m.

Gomphrena nealleyi Coult. & Fisher, Bot. Gaz. 17: 349. 1892
Perennial from a thickened fleshy fusiform root; plants erect or ascending, 1-4 dm. high, branched at the base; stems simple or with few erect branches, slender, pilose with long, slender, appressed or spreading hairs; leaves short-petiolate, the blades ob ovateoblong to oval, or the lowest spatulate, 1.5-4 cm. long, 0.6-1.5 cm. wide, rounded at the apex and mucro-
nate, acute to acuminate at the base, green, copiously pilose-sericeous on the lower surface, glabrous on the upper; heads solitary, terminating long peduncles, each subtended by 2 sessile, oval or ovate bracts, these equaling or shorter than the heads, the latter subglobose or shortcylindric, about 1 2 mm. in diameter ; bracts ovate-triangular, long-acuminate, yellowishwhite ; bractlets 2-2.5 times as long as the bracts, longacuminate, yellowish-white or pinkish, subcoriaceous, narrowly cristate just below the apex, the crest entire or denticulate; perianth slightly shorter than the bractlets, densely lanate below, the lobes oblong-linear, acuminate, whitish; stamentube usually exserted; stigmas very short and stout, subsessile; seed globoseovoid, 1.5 mm. long, reddish-brown, shining.
Type locality: Corpus Christi, Texas.
Distribution: Southwestern Texas and adjacent Mexico.