Common Amaranth - Amaranthus retroflexus

Alternative names
Amaranth
Description

Short to tall erect rather greyish plant, hairy above. Leaves oval stalked. Flowers in a short dense spike.

Similar Species

There are many other alien species of Amaranthus.  Identification is extremely difficult. 

Identification difficulty
ID checklist (your specimen should have all of these features)

Refer to key in Stace (4th edn.)

Recording advice

Only possible to identify from a specimen collected late in the year. 

The County Recorder has asked for a specimen of this plant to be retained for verification

Habitat

Waste and cultivated land.

When to see it

July to October.

Life History

Annual.

UK Status

A scarce plant with most British records coming from England and Wales.

VC55 Status

Scarce in Leicestershire & Rutland - this is only the 7th record. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in only 2 of the 617 tetrads.

Leicestershire & Rutland Map

MAP KEY:

Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2020+ | 2015-2019 | pre-2015

UK Map

Species profile

Common names
Common Amaranth
Species group:
Wildflowers
Kingdom:
Plantae
Order:
Caryophyllales
Family:
Amaranthaceae
Records on NatureSpot:
4
First record:
02/09/2010 (Calow, Graham)
Last record:
27/09/2018 (Grimes, Martin)

Total records by month

% of records within its species group

10km squares with records

The latest images and records displayed below include those awaiting verification checks so we cannot guarantee that every identification is correct. Once accepted, the record displays a green tick.

In the Latest Records section, click on the header to sort A-Z, and again to sort Z-A. Use the header boxes to filter the list.

Latest images

Latest records