Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: June to September.

Seed-time: July to October.

Range: Maine to Minnesota, southward to New Jersey, Texas, and Arizona. Habitat: Dry soil; cultivated ground, waste places.

Often growing with the Tumbling Pigweed, and very like it in the shape of its small, spatulate leaves and small, greenish flowers; but its pale green, succulent branches are more slender, slightly ridged, six inches to nearly two feet in length and lie flat on the ground, spreading on all sides from the central root and forming thick mats. Like the other, it crowds out better plants and absorbs much food and moisture from the soil. The bracts subtending the flowers are ovate to lance-shaped, hardly exceeding the sepals; stamens three; utricle smooth, the seed nearly twice as large as those of the Tumbleweed, and for that reason much more difficult to remove from other seeds, particularly clover. (Fig. 76.) This plant and the two preceding species are subject to the white mold which attacks beets, and may also harbor on their roots the small striped beet-feeding beetle (Systena toeniata, Say) both in the larval and mature stages.

It requires the same measures for its suppression as does the Tumble-weed.

Fig. 76. - Prostrate Pigweed (Amaranthus blitoides). X 1/4.