Amaranth flowers

The amaranth plant is great. Its seeds are slightly larger than a sea grain, but on one stem they can be up to half a million. Flowers amaranth - this is a special theme, they like flaming placers flaunt over leafy stems and can be golden, burgundy, purple.

In those days, when the Spanish conquistadors landed on the shores of America, she drowned in the endless thickets of this plant. The Indians not only fed on it, but also used it in their religious rites. In order to liberate the land from indigenous people, the Spaniards, and then other colonizers, sought to deprive them of food. Therefore, they destroyed all the plants that provide food, including amaranth.

He managed to survive only in the remote highlands of Mexico. At the end of the twentieth century, Australian scientists have proved that amaranth is the most valuable plant. Its seeds contain more protein compounds than the cereals cultivated all over the world, and their composition includes even the kind of protein that occurs only in milk. He is unpretentious to weather and soil conditions, survives even in extreme heat. More than eight hundred species of the family of amaranth in ancient times were widespread worldwide cultivated grains. China and India and today actively feed on products derived from these plants.

But in our country amaranth flowers are most valued - wonderful decorative shrubs with bright coloring and unsurpassed beauty and diversity in the form of inflorescences. For example, only one of the species has several varieties of forms. This species is popularly called the cock's crest. The palette of coloring does not know the limits. It presents almost all the colors of the rainbow, from white to violet.

In the Middle Ages amaranth flowers were actively imported into Europe. They were grown in court gardens and parks. Ripe seeds were used to produce vegetable oil, and the green mass was fed to cattle. Gradually the amaranth flowers so won the sympathy of the Europeans that the Queen of Sweden dedicated to them a special cavalier order, to which the most worthy of her subjects had the right to join.

In contrast to the cock's comb, amaranth tail has a lot of long, amazingly beautiful crimson laces, flowing from the top of the plant to the ground. It is also called in some places a fox tail. In our gardens often there is an amaranth, a photo of which is attached to this article. Its inflorescences can reach a length of more than one meter. Depending on the form, they come up with different names. There is a sort of Sad, and there is - Meter, or simply - Crimson.

The very name "amaranth" already includes the noun "flower". We know his Greek pronunciation, which is easy to translate. Literally, amaranth means "a flower that does not fade away." He served the Greek soldiers as the emblem of immortality. And this is not accidental. If the cut inflorescence of amaranth is placed in a vase, it will not fade, but retain its charm throughout the winter and until the new season. This property can be used to create decorative compositions.