20 FLORA DOMESTIC A. 



From a passage in Don Quixote one may suppose that 

 Amaranths were sometimes worn by the Spanish ladies in 

 the time of Cervantes ; but the chief value of such passages 

 consists in showing us the probable taste of the author. It 

 is where he speaks of a set of ladies and gentlemen who 

 were amusing themselves by playing shepherds and shep- 

 herdesses in the woods, and who had hung some green 

 nets across the trees. And as he (Don Quixote) was going 

 to pass forward and break through all (he took it for 

 the work of enchanters) " unexpectedly from among some 

 trees two most beautiful shepherdesses presented them- 

 selves before him : at least they were clad like shep- 

 herdesses, except that their waistcoats and petticoats were 

 of fine brocade, their habits were of rich gold tabby, 

 their hair, which for brightness might come in competition 

 with the rays of the sun, hanging loose about their shoul- 

 ders, and their heads crowned with garlands of green 

 laurel and red flower-gentles interwoven. 11 The delicate 

 and sunny-coloured bay leaves of the south, and the red or 

 purple Amaranth, interwoven, would make a beautiful mix- 

 ture, especially as the Amaranth is deficient in leaves. 



In Portugal, and other warm countries, the churches 

 are, in winter, adorned with the Globe Amaranth. Cowley 

 and Rapin, in their Latin poems on plants and gardens, 

 make honourable mention of the Amaranth ; but the trans- 

 lations of those poems are too unworthy of their originals 

 to admit of quotation, and a friend who would have supplied 

 me with better is on a distant journey. 



The Cock^s comb Amaranth is a very showy and remark- 

 able plant. The appellation was given it from the form 

 of its crested head of flowers resembling the comb of a 



ing on a kind of flute, crowned with garlands of flowers, among which 

 the Globe Amaranth, a native of the country, mostly prevails." 



