Amaranthaceae
莧科
特徵描述
作者
LIU, TANG-SHUI and KAO, MUH-TSUEN
型態特徵
Erect, prostrate or scandent annual or perennial herbs, rarely undershrubs. Leaves alternate or opposite, simple, entire or obsoletely serrate-dentate, extipulate. Flowers small, greenish, white, pink, rarely yellow, actinomorphic, usually bisexual, in spikes, heads, racemes or panicles; bracts and bracteoles often scarious, the bracteoles sometimes hooked; perianth segments 3–5, free or nearly so, imbricate, more or less dry and membranaceous, mostly falling with fruit, rarely persistent; stamens as many as and opposite the perianth segments, hypogynous, filaments usually united at base into a cup or tube, often with staminodes between them, anthers 1 or 2-celled; ovary of 2 or 3 united carpels, superior, 1-celled, with 1 to many ovules on a basal funicle, the style present or not, stigma capitate or 2 or 3-fid. Fruit mostly an utricle or a circumscissile capsule, rarely a berry or drupe; seeds often lenticular, smooth; embryo annular, surrounding the mealy endosperm.
屬
Genera about 64, with about 800 species mainly in the tropical regions of the world; nine genera with 19 species, including some introduced ones, in Taiwan.