Plant · P-708

Palmer Amaranth

Amaranthus palmeri

Palmer amaranth is a fast-growing warm-season annual whose leaves are cooked like spinach and whose seed is toasted, boiled into porridge or ground into flour, with a complete protein profile that ranks among the best of any leaf crop. It grows explosively - over three inches a day at its peak - and a single female plant can set half a million seeds, which is why it is treated as a serious agricultural weed and is banned outright in several states. Its deep taproot pulls minerals up from the subsoil, but the same trait means it can build up nitrate to dangerous levels on nitrogen-rich ground, so foliage from heavily fertilised plants should not be eaten or fed to stock.