Redroot Pigweed (<i>Amaranthus retroflexus</i>)

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 Lost Redroot 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).