Annual herbs with alternate entire petioled leaves and small monoecious flowers, the pistillate ones pilose or villous, the staminate ones uppermost, very small. Staminate calyx 3-5-parted; stamens 2-5. Pistillate calyx 3-4-parted; ovary suborbicular, somewhat flattened; stigmas 2, filiform, connate at the base. Utricle obovate to cuneate, winged or crested at the apex, enclosed in the perianth. Seed erect; embryo horseshoe-shaped; endosperm copious. [Greek, mild to the taste.]

Five or six species, natives of northern Asia, the following typical.

1. Axyris Amarantoides L. Upright Axyris

Fig. 1704

Axyris amarantoides L. Sp. Pl. 979. 1753.

Erect, often much branched, 1°-2° high, pubescent, the slender branches ascending. Leaves ovate, elliptic or lanceolate, entire, acute or obtusish, narrowed at the base, thin, 1 1/2'-3' long, the slender petioles 3"-7" long; staminate flowers minute, glomerate-spicate; fruit oval or obovate, more or less winged at the top, flattened.

Waste and cultivated grounds, Manitoba and North . Dakota. Naturalized from Russia or Siberia.