Family: Goosefoot [Amaranthaceae]

Alternanthera

Amaranthus

Atriplex

Axyris

Bassia

Beta

Blitum

Celosia

Chenopodium

Corispermum

Cycloloma

Dysphania

Monolepis

Salicornia

Salsola

Sarcocornia

Spinacia

Suaeda

The Goosefoot family are mostly opportunist annual flowers occupying bare or un-cultivated ground, with between 3 to 5 bracteoles, male and female separate. On a leafless spike a tight cluster of usually small greenish-brown petal-less flowers resides. The leaves are usually un-toothed. The three most frequent species are common amaranth, green amaranth and white pigweed, but 27 others have been recorded. Love-lies-bleeding is a well known garden plant that has escaped into the wild. Taxonomic authorities cannot agree on whether the Goosefoot Family [Chenopodiaceae] should be subsumed into The Amaranthaceae Family, or not, but here it has been!