Prickly Amaranth is an annual herb with sometimes red tinged erect stems,
sometimes ascending, 30-150 cm long, usually branched. Leaves ovate to
rhombic-ovate, elliptic, lanceolate-oblong, or lanceolate, blades 1-12 cm
long, 0.89-6 cm wide, smooth, leaft stalk 1-9 cm long. Flowers green, in
axillary clusters in the lower part of the plant and in unbranched or
branched spikes in the upper part, the lower clusters entirely without
stamens as are the lower flowers of the spikes, the upper flowers in the
spikes staminate. Prickly Amaranth is native to Tropical America,
widely naturalized elsewhere. It is found in the Himalayas, and Western
Ghats up to altitudes of 1200 m.
Identification credit: Dinesh Valke
Photographed in Vaghbil, Thane, Maharashtra.
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The flower labeled Prickly Amaranth is ...