“In meads there is a flower Amello named,
By him that seeks it easy to be found,
For that it seems by many branches framed
Into a little wood: like gold the ground
Thereof appears; but leaves that it beset
Shine in the colour of the Violet.”
AMORPHOPHALLUS.—The gigantic Aroid, Amorphophallus campanulatus, or Carrion Plant of Java, is regarded with repugnance as a plant of ill-omen. Previous to the sudden bursting, about sunset, of the spathe containing the spadix, there is an accumulation of heat therein. When it opens, it exhales an offensive odour that is quite overpowering, and so much resembles that of carrion, that flies cover the club of the spadix with their eggs.
ANDHAS.—The luminous plant of the Vedic Soma. The plant is also called in general Arjunî, that is to say, Shining. From Andhas it is supposed the Greek word anthos was derived.
ANDROMEDA.—This shrub owes its classical appellation to Linnæus, who gave it the name of Andromeda after the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiope. Ovid, in his ‘Metamorphoses,’ has sung how, lashed to a rock, she was exposed to a sea monster, sent by Neptune to ravage her father’s country, and how she was at last rescued by Perseus, and became his bride. Linnæus thus explains why he gave the Marsh Cistus the name of the classical princess:—“As I contemplated it, I could not help thinking of Andromeda, as described by the poets—a virgin of most exquisite beauty and unrivalled charms. The plant is always fixed in some turfy hillock in the midst of the swamps, as Andromeda herself was chained to a rock in the sea, which bathed her feet as the fresh water does the root of the plant. As the distressed virgin cast down her blushing face through excessive affliction, so does the rosy-coloured flower hang its head, growing paler and paler till it withers away. At length comes Perseus, in the shape of Summer, dries up the surrounding waters, and destroys the monster.” The leaves of this family of plants have noxious properties, and the very honey is said to be poisonous.
ANEMONE.—The origin of the Anemone, according to Ovid, is to be found in the death of Adonis, the favourite of Venus. Desperately wounded by a boar to which he had given chase, the ill-fated youth lay expiring on the blood-stained grass, when he was found by Venus, who, overcome with grief, determined that her fallen lover should hereafter live as a flower.