Amaranthus grandiflorus

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Amaranthus grandiflorus
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Amaranthaceae
Genus: Amaranthus
Species:
A. grandiflorus
Binomial name
Amaranthus grandiflorus
Synonyms
  • Amaranthus mitchellii var. grandiflorusJ.M.Black

Amaranthus grandiflorus is a species of Amaranthus found in Australia.

Australia Country in Oceania

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. The population of 25 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide.

Contents

Description

Amaranthus grandiflorus is an annual plant, reaching up to 40 centimetres (16 in) tall. The leaves are ovate to lanceolate, and up to 5 centimetres (2.0 in), with an acute tip. The flowers are clustered into inflorescences, borne in the axils. The petals are 5–7 millimetres (0.20–0.28 in) long. [1]

Annual plant Plant that completes its life cycle within one growing season, and then dies

An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seeds, within one growing season, and then dies. The length of growing seasons and period in which they take place vary according to geographical location, and may not correspond to the four traditional seasonal divisions of the year. With respect to the traditional seasons annual plants are generally categorized into summer annuals and winter annuals. Summer annuals germinate during spring or early summer and mature by autumn of the same year. Winter annuals germinate during the autumn and mature during the spring or summer of the following calendar year.

Inflorescence Term used in botany to describe a cluster of flowers

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed. The modifications can involve the length and the nature of the internodes and the phyllotaxis, as well as variations in the proportions, compressions, swellings, adnations, connations and reduction of main and secondary axes. Inflorescence can also be defined as the reproductive portion of a plant that bears a cluster of flowers in a specific pattern.

Distribution and ecology

Amaranthus grandiflorus is found in Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. [2] It lives in inland areas, especially drier regions such as areas of red sand. [1]

Northern Territory federal territory of Australia

The Northern Territory is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. It shares borders with Western Australia to the west, South Australia to the south, and Queensland to the east. To the north, the territory looks out to the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Western New Guinea and other Indonesian islands. The NT covers 1,349,129 square kilometres (520,902 sq mi), making it the third-largest Australian federal division, and the 11th-largest country subdivision in the world. It is sparsely populated, with a population of only 245,800, fewer than half as many people as Tasmania.

South Australia State of Australia

South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres (379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and fifth largest by population. It has a total of 1.7 million people, and its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital, Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second largest centre, has a population of 28,684.

Queensland North-east state of Australia

Queensland is the second-largest and third-most populous state in the Commonwealth of Australia. Situated in the north-east of the country, it is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean. To its north is the Torres Strait, with Papua New Guinea located less than 200 km across it from the mainland. The state is the world's sixth-largest sub-national entity, with an area of 1,852,642 square kilometres (715,309 sq mi).

Taxonomy

Amaranthus grandiflorus was originally described in 1923 by John McConnell Black as a variety of Amaranthus mitchellii . [1] [3]

John McConnell Black British botanist

John McConnell Black was a Scottish botanist who emigrated to Australia in 1877 and eventually documented and illustrated thousands of flora in South Australia in the early 20th century. His publications assisted many botanists and scientists in the decades that followed. He was the younger brother of theatre and hotel manager Helen Carte.

In botanical nomenclature, variety is a taxonomic rank below that of species and subspecies, but above that of form. As such, it gets a three-part infraspecific name. It is sometimes recommended that the subspecies rank should be used to recognize geographic distinctiveness, whereas the variety rank is appropriate if the taxon is seen throughout the geographic range of the species.

Amaranthus mitchellii is commonly known as Mitchell's amaranth or boggabri weed. It is from the family Amaranthaceae. It is a generally useful plant and is said to be "edible".

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "Amaranthus grandiflorus (J.M.Black) J.M.Black". New South Wales Flora Online. National Herbarium of New South Wales. Retrieved June 1, 2012.
  2. "Amaranthaceae" (PDF). Australian Plant Census. Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria. Retrieved June 1, 2012.
  3. J. M. Black (1923). "Additions to the flora of South Australia no. 21". Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia. 47: 367–370.