AMARANTOS_{sacred to Artemis}

Pliny, a Roman naturalist of the first century A.D., wrote of an imaginary flower called the amaranth that never faded. A century later, Clement of Alexandria said that the amaranth is the symbol of immortality. The plants that are included in the amaranth family today all have small flowers in brightly colored dense clusters. Among them are the deep red cockscomb, love-lies-bleeding, and prince's feather. What these flowers have in common is that they do not wither when picked and they retain their red color for months.

Because of its unfading quality, amaranth, with its adjective amaranthine, has long been a poetic favorite. Milton wrote in Paradise Lost (1667) of "Immortal amarant, a flower which once/In Paradise fast by the tree of life/Began to bloom; but soon, for man's offence,/To heaven removed, where first it grew." Cowper wrote in 1781: "Hope plucks amaranthine joys from bowers of bliss." An 1858 poem by Longfellow contains the line "The angel with the amaranthine wreath, Pausing, descended."

More prosaically, some species of amaranth are cultivated as food. Although the seeds are high in protein, I've not found any claims that they provide immortality.