''Amaranthus'' is a

cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Internationalism * World citizen, one who eschews traditional geopolitical divisions derived from national citizenship * Cosmopolitanism, the idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community * Cosmopolitan ...

group of more than 50 species which make up the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

annual Annual may refer to: *Annual publication, periodical publications appearing regularly once per year **Yearbook **Literary annual *Annual plant *Annual report *Annual giving *Annual, Morocco, a settlement in northeastern Morocco *Annuals (band), a ...

or short-lived

perennial plant In horticulture, the term perennial (''wikt:per-#Prefix, per-'' + ''wikt:-ennial#Suffix, -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annual plant, annuals and biennial plant, biennials. It has thus been d ...

s collectively known as amaranths. Some names include "

prostrate pigweed Prostrate pigweed is a common name for several plants and may refer to: *'' Amaranthus albus'' *'' Amaranthus blitoides'' {{Short pages monitor

Leaves, roots, and stems

Amaranth species are cultivated and consumed as a

leaf vegetable Leaf vegetables, also called leafy greens, vegetable greens, or simply greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by their petioles and shoots, if tender. Leaf vegetables eaten raw in a salad can be called salad gre ...

in many parts of the world. Four species of ''Amaranthus'' are documented as cultivated vegetables in eastern Asia: ''

Amaranthus cruentus ''Amaranthus cruentus'' is a flowering plant species that is native from Central Mexico to Nicaragua. It yields a nutritious staple amaranth grain, being one of three '' Amaranthus'' species cultivated as a grain source, the other two being '' ...

'', ''

Amaranthus blitum ''Amaranthus blitum'', commonly called purple amaranth or Guernsey pigweed, is an annual plant species in the economically important plant family Amaranthaceae. Description ''Amaranthus blitum'' is an erect or semi-prostrate annual plant. The si ...

, Amaranthus dubius'', and ''

Amaranthus tricolor ''Amaranthus tricolor'', known as edible amaranth, is a species of flowering plant in the genus '' Amaranthus'', part of the family Amaranthaceae. The plant is often cultivated for ornamental and culinary purposes. It is known as bireum in Kore ...

''.

Asia

In Indonesia and Malaysia, leaf amaranth is called (although the word has since been loaned to refer to

spinach Spinach (''Spinacia oleracea'') is a leafy green flowering plant native to Central Asia, Central and Western Asia. It is of the order Caryophyllales, family Amaranthaceae, subfamily Chenopodioideae. Its leaves are a common vegetable consumed eit ...

, in a different genus). In the Philippines, the Ilocano word for the plant is ; the Tagalog word for the plant is or . In

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh ( ; UP) is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the List of states and union territories of India by population, most populated state in In ...

and

Bihar Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...

in India, it is called and is a popular red leafy vegetable (referred to in the class of vegetable preparations called ). It is called ''chua'' in Kumaun area of Uttarakhand, where it is a popular red-green vegetable. In

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

in India, it is called (). It is used to prepare curries such as ''hulee, palya, majjigay-hulee'', and so on. In Kerala, it is called ''cheera'' and is consumed by stir-frying the leaves with spices and red chili peppers to make a dish called ''cheera

thoran Thoran (pronounced ); or upperi in Northern Kerala is a class of dry vegetable dishes combined with coconut that originated in the Indian state of Kerala. This common dish is usually eaten with rice and curry and is also part of the tradition ...

''. In Tamil Nadu, it is called and is regularly consumed as a favourite dish, where the greens are steamed and mashed with light seasoning of salt, red chili pepper, and cumin. It is called . In the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and other Telugu speaking regions of the country, this leaf is called as "''Thotakura''" and is cooked as a standalone curry, added as a part of mix leafy vegetable curry or added in preparation of a popular ''

dal Dal is a term in the Indian subcontinent for dried, split pulses. Dal or DAL may also refer to: Places Cambodia *Dal, Ke Chong Finland * Laakso, a neighbourhood of Helsinki India * Dal Lake, in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India * Dal ...

'' called () in (

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

). In Maharashtra, it is called and is available in both red and white colour. In Orissa, it is called , it is used to prepare , in which the leaf is fried with chili and onions. In

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

, the green variant is called () and the red variant is called (). In China, the leaves and stems are used as a stir-fry vegetable, or in soups. In Vietnam, it is called and is used to make

soup Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot – though it is sometimes served chilled – made by cooking or otherwise combining meat or vegetables with Stock (food), stock, milk, or water. According to ''The Oxford Compan ...

. Two species are popular as edible vegetable in Vietnam: (''Amaranthus tricolor'') and or (''Amaranthus viridis'').

Africa

A traditional food plant in Africa, amaranth has the potential to improve nutrition, boost

food security Food security is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, healthy Human food, food. The availability of food for people of any class, gender, ethnicity, or religion is another element of food protection. Simila ...

, foster rural development and support sustainable land care. In Bantu regions of Uganda and western Kenya, it is known as ''doodo'' or ''litoto''. It is also known among the

Kalenjin Kalenjin may refer to: * Kalenjin people of Kenya ** Elgeyo people (Keiyo people) ** Kipsigis people ** Marakwet people ** Nandi people ** Pokot people ** Terik people ** Tugen people ** Sebei people * Kalenjin language Kalenjin may refer t ...

as a

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

crop (''chepkerta''). In

Lingala Lingala (or Ngala, Lingala: ) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser de ...

(spoken in the Congo), it is known as or . In Nigeria, it is a common vegetable and goes with all Nigerian starch dishes. It is known in Yoruba as , a short form of (meaning "make the husband fat"), or (meaning "we have money left over for fish"). In Botswana, it is referred to as ''morug'' and cooked as a staple green vegetable.

Europe

In Greece, purple amaranth (''

'') is a popular dish called , or . It is boiled, then served with olive oil and lemon juice like a salad, sometimes alongside fried fish. Greeks stop harvesting the plant (which also grows wild) when it starts to bloom at the end of August.

Americas

In Brazil, green amaranth was, and to a degree still is, often considered an invasive species as all other species of amaranth (except the generally imported ''A. caudatus'' cultivar), though some have traditionally appreciated it as a leaf vegetable, under the names of or , which is consumed cooked, generally accompanying the staple food,

rice and beans Rice and beans, or beans and rice, is a category of dishes from many cultures around the world, whereby the staple foods of rice and beans are combined in some manner. The grain and legume combination provides several important nutrients and many ...

. In the Caribbean, the leaves are called ''bhaji'' in Trinidad and ''callaloo'' in Jamaica, and are sautéed with onions, garlic, and tomatoes, or sometimes used in a soup called pepperpot soup.

Oil

Making up about 5% of the total

fatty acid In chemistry, in particular in biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with an aliphatic chain, which is either saturated and unsaturated compounds#Organic chemistry, saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have an ...

s of amaranth,

squalene Squalene is an organic compound. It is a triterpene with the formula C30H50. It is a colourless oil, although impure samples appear yellow. It was originally obtained from shark liver oil (hence its name, as '' Squalus'' is a genus of sharks). ...

is extracted as a vegetable-based alternative to the more expensive shark oil for use in

dietary supplements A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement a person's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources, or that are synthetic ...

and

cosmetics Cosmetics are substances that are intended for application to the body for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering appearance. They are mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either Natural product, natural source ...

Dyes

The flowers of the 'Hopi Red Dye' amaranth were used by the

Hopi The Hopi are Native Americans who primarily live in northeastern Arizona. The majority are enrolled in the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona; however, some Hopi people are enrolled in the Colorado ...

(a tribe in the western United States) as the source of a deep red

dye Juan de Guillebon, better known by his stage name DyE, is a French musician. He is known for the music video of the single "Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical ele ...

. Also a synthetic dye was named "

amaranth ''Amaranthus'' is a cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan group of more than 50 species which make up the genus of annual plant, annual or short-lived perennial plants collectively known as amaranths. Some names include "prostrate pigweed" an ...

" for its similarity in color to the natural amaranth

pigment A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...

s known as

betalain Betalains are a class of red and yellow tyrosine-derived pigments found in plants of the order Caryophyllales, where they replace anthocyanin pigments. Betalains also occur in some higher order fungi. They are most often noticeable in the petals o ...

s. This synthetic dye is also known as Red No. 2 in North America and E123 in the European Union.

Ornamentals

The genus also contains several well-known ornamental plants, such as ''Amaranthus caudatus'' (love-lies-bleeding), a vigorous,

hardy Hardy may refer to: People * Hardy (surname) * Hardy (given name) * Hardy (singer), American singer-songwriter Places Antarctica * Mount Hardy, Enderby Land * Hardy Cove, Greenwich Island * Hardy Rocks, Biscoe Islands Australia * Hardy, ...

annual with dark purplish

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

s crowded in handsome drooping spikes. Another Indian annual, ''A. hypochondriacus'' (prince's feather), has deeply veined, lance-shaped leaves, purple on the under face, and deep crimson flowers densely packed on erect spikes. Amaranths are recorded as food plants for some

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) or lepidopterans is an order (biology), order of winged insects which includes butterflies and moths. About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera have been described, representing 10% of the total described species of living organ ...

(

butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

and

moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...

) species including the nutmeg moth and various case-bearer moths of the genus ''

Coleophora ''Coleophora'' is a very large genus of moths of the family Coleophoridae. It contains some 1,350 described species. The genus is represented on all continents, but the majority are found in the Nearctic and Palaearctic regions. Many authors have t ...

'': ''C. amaranthella'', ''C. enchorda'' (feeds exclusively on ''Amaranthus''), ''C. immortalis'' (feeds exclusively on ''Amaranthus''), ''C. lineapulvella'', and ''C. versurella'' (recorded on ''A. spinosus'').

Culture

Diego Durán Diego Durán (c. 1537 – 1588) was a Dominican friar best known for his authorship of one of the earliest Western books on the history and culture of the Aztecs, ''The History of the Indies of New Spain'', a book that was much criticised in ...

described the festivities for the Aztec god . The Aztec month of (7 December to 26 December) was dedicated to . People decorated their homes and trees with paper flags; ritual races, processions, dances, songs, prayers, and finally

human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease deity, gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/prie ...

s were held. This was one of the more important Aztec festivals, and the people prepared for the whole month. They fasted or ate very little; a statue of the god was made out of amaranth seeds and honey, and at the end of the month, it was cut into small pieces so everybody could eat a piece of the god. After the Spanish conquest, cultivation of amaranth was outlawed, while some of the festivities were subsumed into the Christmas celebration. Amaranth is associated with longevity and, poetically, with death and immortality. Amaranth garlands were used in the mourning of

Achilles In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus () was a hero of the Trojan War who was known as being the greatest of all the Greek warriors. The central character in Homer's ''Iliad'', he was the son of the Nereids, Nereid Thetis and Peleus, ...

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...

's ''

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an Epic poetry, epic poem in blank verse by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The poem concerns the Bible, biblical story of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their ex ...

'' portrays a showy amaranth in the

Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden (; ; ) or Garden of God ( and ), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2–3 and Ezekiel 28 and 31.. The location of Eden is described in the Book of Ge ...

, "remov'd from Heav'n" when it blossoms because the flowers "shade the fountain of life". He describes amaranth as "immortal" in reference to the flowers that generally do not wither and retain bright reddish tones of color, even when deceased; referred to in one species as " love-lies-bleeding."

Gallery

Amaranthus caudatus1.jpg, Love-lies-bleeding ('' A. caudatus'') Amaranthus.hybridus1web.jpg, Green amaranth (''A. hybridus'') Amaranth2.jpg, Seabeach amaranth (''A. pumilus''), an amaranth on the Federal

Threatened species A threatened species is any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which is vulnerable to extinction in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensatio ...

List Illustration Amaranthus retroflexus0.jpg, Red-root amaranth (''A. retroflexus'')—from Thomé, ''Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz'' 1885 Amaranthus.spinosus1web.jpg, Spiny amaranth ('' A. spinosus'') Amaranthus.viridis1web.jpg, Green amaranth ('' A. viridis'') Amaranth sp 2.jpg, Popping amaranth (''Amaranthus sp.'') Fepm (8).jpg, Amaranth from

Chilpancingo Chilpancingo de los Bravo (commonly shortened to Chilpancingo; ; Nahuatl: Chilpantzinco ()) is the capital and second-largest city of the Mexican state of Guerrero. In 2010 it had a population of 187,251 people. The municipality has an area of ...

References

External links

Grain amaranth, Crops For A Future
{{Authority control Leaf vegetables Tropical agriculture Asian vegetables Pseudocereals E-number additives Plants used in Native American cuisine