Annual herb, erect or less commonly ascending, up to 2 m tall, often reddish tinted throughout; stems stout, branched, angular, glabrous or thinly to moderately furnished with multicellular hairs. Leaves arranged spirally, simple, without stipules, long-petiolate; lamina broadly lanceolate to rhombic-ovate, 2–18 cm × 2–15 cm, attenuate or shortly cuneate at base, obtuse to subacute at apex, mucronate, entire, glabrous to sparsely pilose, pinnately veined. Inflorescence large and complex, consisting of numerous agglomerated cymes arranged in axillary and terminal racemes and spikes, the terminal one up to 45 cm long, usually with many lateral, perpendicular, thin branches; bracts 2–3 mm long, with a long awn. Flowers unisexual, subsessile, with 5 tepals 1–2 mm long; male flowers with 5 stamens c. 1 mm long; female flowers with superior, 1-celled ovary crowned by 3 stigmas. Fruit an obovoid to rhombic capsule 2–2.5 mm long, circumscissile, almost smooth, with a short beak, 1-seeded. Seed obovoid to ellipsoid, compressed, c. 1 mm long, whitish to yellowish or blackish.

Diuretic and laxative (leaves)

PROTAbase: Amaranthus cruentus

Vegetable leaves are recommended as a good food with medicinal properties for young children, lactating mothers and for patients with constipation, fever, haemorrhage, anaemia or kidney complaints. The water of macerated plants is used as a wash to treat pains in the limbs. It is also used as a tapeworm-expellent. The ash from the stems is used as a wound dressing. The heated leaves were used on tumours.