Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Caryophyllales > Amaranthaceae > Amaranthus > Amaranthus tortuosus

Amaranthus tortuosus (spleen amaranth)

Synonyms: Amaranthus dubius

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-High
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Monoecious
Hazards [2]  No members of this genus are known to be poisonous, but when grown on nitrogen-rich soils they are known to concentrate nitrates in the leaves. This is especially noticeable on land where chemical fertilizers are used. Nitrates are implicated in stomach cancers, blue babies and some other health problems. It is inadvisable, therefore, to eat this plant if it is grown inorganically.
Lifespan [2]  Annual
Pollinators [2]  Wind, Bats
Structure [3]  Herb
Usage [2]  Yellow and green dyes can be obtained from the whole plant;
View Plants For A Future Record : Amaranthus tortuosus

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Archipelago de Colon Biosphere Reserve 34336011 Galapagos Islands, Ecuador  
Mahale Mountains National Park II 398414 Tanzania

Predators

Spinus cucullatus (Red Siskin)[4]
Spodoptera eridania (southern armyworm)[5]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 4Red Siskin, BirdLife International (1992) Threatened Birds of the Americas. Cambridge, UK: BirdLife International.
♦ 5HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0