AMARANTH, or Amarant (from the Greek αμάραντος, unwithering), a name chiefly used in poetry, and applied to certain plants which, from not soon fading, typified immortality. Thus Milton (Paradise Lost, iii. 353) :— “Immortal amarant, a flower which once In paradise, fast by the tree of life, Began to bloom; but soon for man’s offence To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows, And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life, And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven Rolls o’er elysian flowers her amber stream: With these that never fade the spirits elect Bind their resplendent locks.”

The famous flowers, however, still live upon earth, and are known in our gardens as love-lies-bleeding, prince’s feather, cockscomb, and the globe amaranth. As we wreathe our churches in winter with holly and ivy, the churches in Portugal and other southern countries are adorned with the purple tints of the globe amaranth, which is said to retain its colour for years. It should be noted that the proper spelling of the word is amarant; the more common spelling seems to have come from a hazy notion that the final syllable is the Greek word for flower, which enters into a vast number of botanical names.