Plants annual, glabrous, glabrescent, or pubescent. Bracts not enfolding flower, not leaflike, narrowly lanceolate to subulate-linear, margins entire, plane or indistinctly undulate at margins. Pistillate flowers: tepals (4-)5, spatulate or obovate-elliptic, sometimes only outer tepals distinctly spatulate. Utricles dehiscence regularly circumscissile (indehiscent only in Amaranthus greggii).

Species 4 (4 in the flora): sw North America.