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 
