Qualitative characteristics of different accessions of amaranth have been observed. On the basis of leaf and stem quality, the whole accessions were classified as leaf and stem amaranth. Among them, 48% accessions were identified as leaf amaranth and the rest 52% were stem amaranth. After sowing, plants were emerged taking different times as slow (90% accessions), very slow (4%), and irregular (6%). All most accessions grew up erectly (88%) with few prostate attitudes (12%). Some germplasm exposed with few branches (4%) whereas the others (96%) with branches all along the stem. Among the accessions, about half had the stem with low pubescence (48%) and the rest had (48%) conspicuous pubescence mode. Maximum (90%) accessions showed purple or pink color stem and minimum (10%) showed green color. Spines in leaf axils were absent in all the accessions. Seventy-four percent of accessions had low pubescence on the leaf. Different types of leaf pigmentation were found among the accessions like entire lamina purple or pink (24%), basal area pigmented (8%), margin and vein pigmented (12%), normal green (16% accessions), dark green (8%) and purple with green color shade (40%). Lanceolate (2%), elliptical (42%), ovatainate (50%), rhombic (4%), and round (2%) shaped leaves were found among the accessions. Leaf margin showed entire (50%), crenate (30%)) and undulate (20%) design. Leaf veins were prominent in all accessions. Green (14%), purple (20%), and dark purple (66%) colored petiole were observed among the accessions. Terminal inflorescence attitude was erect (78%) and drooping (22%). Axillary inflorescence was present in some (66%) accessions and the rest (34%) had none. Ninety percent accessions having intermediate type inflorescence density and 10% with dense type inflorescence were noticed in the experiment. The accessions were flashed with different colored inflorescences such as green (16%), pink (2%), and greenish-yellow (82%). Sixty-four accessions showed black color seed and the rest 36% gave red color. All the 50 accessions had round seeds with opaque seed coats.
Range, mean, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation of different quantitative characters of amaranth have been recorded. On average, plant height was 47.37cm. Days to flowering ranged from 34 to 131. In addition, terminal inflorescence stalk length and lateral length ranged from 9.36 to 23.95 cm and 0.48 to 2.25 cm, respectively. The length of axillary inflorescence ranged from 4 to 10.72 cm. The highest CV was found in the case of 1000 seed weight (48.33%) and the lowest in the length of axillary inflorescence (17.04%). Fifty accessions of amaranth showed color variation in stem, leaf, petiole, inflorescence, and seed. Variation was observed in leaf shape, margin, inflorescence shape, and attitude, etc. Though all the accessions were included for the reporting, the result was not satisfied with some accessions named as BD-7423, BD- 7431, BD- 8131, BD- 8180, BD- 8182, BD - 8184, BD- 8355, BD- 8061, BD-8062, BD-8064, BD-8079, BD-8080, BD-8082, BD-8083, BD-8085, BD-8086, BD-8093, BD-8095 and BD 8109 due to their stunted growth which might be occurred for the seasonal variation. So, those accessions should be characterized in the next year to get sound information about them in the gene bank.