Historical reference: Do not rely on this information. It is very old. About this collection
Amaranth, or more correctly Amarant (see Milton's Paradise Lost, iii. 353), from the Greek amarantos, unwithering, is the name of a large order of weedy herbaceous plants, mostly growing in dry situations in the tropics, having a crowded inflorescence of florets with dry membranous floral leaves, often coloured, as in the familiar "cockscomb," "love-lies-bleeding," and "Prince-of-Wales'-feathers."