354 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 



coarse weed, topped with a feathery greenish or 

 purplish plume. 



Some species of amaranth are cultivated in old- 

 fashioned gardens, and called " cockscomb," 

 " love-lies-bleeding," and " prince's-feather." The 

 gardener knows and hates another variety under 

 the name of " pigweed." All varieties bear blos- 

 soms no bigger around than a hair, and these mi- 

 nute flowers grow in compact clusters, each cluster 

 surrounded by a close circle of chaffy leaves, very 

 slow to wither. The familiar " immortelles," 

 though they are not related to the amaranth, are 

 on the same botanical plan, and their white chaffy 

 leaves (a botanist would call them the involucre) 

 being pretty as well as durable, have brought the 

 little blossoms into general favor. The unwither- 

 ing amaranth was looked upon by the ancients as 

 the flower of immortality. The phrase in the First 

 Epistle of St. Peter, " a crown of glory that fadeth 

 not away," is in the original, " the amaranthine 

 crown of glory." The purple flowers of the ama- 

 ranth retain their color always, and regain their 

 shape when wetted, and were used by the ancients 

 for winter chaplets. As the flower of immortality 

 amaranth was strewed over the graves of old Greece, 

 and Homer relates that the Thessalonians wore 



