Redroot Pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus)

Abstract

“… To the ground, With solemn adoration, down they cast Their crowns, inwove with amaranth and gold. Immortal amaranth, a flower which once In Paradise, fast by the tree of life, Began to bloom.”–John Milton (1608–1676), Paradise LostRedroot pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus L.), one of the New World's major weeds, was described in 1753 by Carolus Linnaeus in Species Plantarum. Over three decades later (1789), the genu wa placed in Amaranthaceae by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836) (Britton and Brown 1898). Amaranthaceae belongs to Centrospermae, a group of familie that contain betalain pigments instead of the anthocyanins found in most other angiosperms; it is closely related to Chenopodiaceae (Heywood 1993).