AMARANTHUS

Description

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Context: Efforts are underway to popularise the inclusion of Amaranthus – a wide variety of leafy vegetables – as part of mixed cropping among farmers in the Mysuru region.

About:

Amaranth, (genus Amaranthus), genus of 60–70 species of flowering plants in the family Amaranthaceae, distributed nearly worldwide.
Several amaranth species are useful as food crops and are grown both for their leaves and for their edible seeds, which are a nutritious pseudocereal (nongrass seeds used like cereal grains).
A number of species, including love-lies-bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus), prince’s feather (A. hypochondriacus), and Joseph’s coat (A. tricolor), are common garden ornamentals.
Several species are considered weeds.
Amaranth plants typically are annuals or short-lived perennials.
The stems often are reddish in colour and sometimes are armed with spines; they bear simple alternately arranged leaves and often feature a pinkish taproot.
The plants can be monoecious (flowers of both sexes are on the same individual) or dioecious (each individual produces flowers of a single sex).
The small flowers typically feature colourful bracts and are arranged in dense showy inflorescences; a single plant can produce hundreds or thousands of seeds, borne singly in dry capsule fruits.
The plants utilize a photosynthetic pathway known as C4 carbon fixation, which largely prevents photorespiration and thus increases drought tolerance.