Amaranth, Ambrosia, and Athanasia.
Amaranth is the name which has been given to the genus of plants of which Prince's Feather and Love-Lies-Bleeding are species. This means immortal and is the word used in the Epistle of St. Peter (v, 4), the amaranthine crown of glory, or as translated in our version "the crown of glory that fadeth not away." Milton refers to the "immortal amaranth, a flower which once in Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life began to bloom."
Ambrosia, the food of the gods, sometimes alluded to as drink, and sometimes as a sweet-smelling ointment, was also referred to by Dioscorides and Pliny as a herb, but it is not known what particular plant they meant. It was reputed to be nine times sweeter than honey. The herb Ambrose of the old herbalists was the Chenopodium Botrys, but C. Ambroisioides (the oak of Jerusalem), the wild sage, and the field parsley have also borne the name. The Ambroisia of modern botanists is a plant of the wormwood kind.
Athanasia was abbreviated by the old herbalists into Tansy, and this herb acquired the fame due to its distinguished designation. In Lucian's Dialogues of the Gods, Jupiter tells Hercules to take with him the beautiful Ganymede, whom he has stolen from earth, "and when he has drunk of Athanasia (immortality) bring him back, and he shall be our cupbearer." Naturally the ancients sought for that herb, Athanasia, which would yield immortality.
Myrrh.
Myrrha, the daughter of Cinyrus, King of Cyprus, having become pregnant, was driven from home by her
