=AMBROSIA.=--The Ambrosia-tree, or tree bearing immortal food, is one of the most popular guises of the Hindu world-trees. The Paradise of Indra had five trees, under the refreshing shade of which the gods reclined and enjoyed life-inspiring draughts of Ambrosia or _Amrita_. The chief of these trees was the _Pârijâta_ (usually identified with the _Erythrina Indica_), and this was deemed the Ambrosia-tree.----The Greeks knew a herb which they named _Ambrosia_, the food of immortals, and it was so called by the ancients because they believed that a continued use of it rendered men long-lived, just as the ambrosia of the gods preserved their immortality. The Moors to this day entertain a belief in the existence of such a plant. The old English name given to this herb was Ambrose, which was applied to the _Chenopodium Botrys_; but the ancients seem to have applied the name of _Ambrosia_ to the Field Parsley, the Wild Sage, and the _Chenopodium ambrosioides_. The plant known as Ambrosia at the present day belongs to the Wormwood family. =AMELLUS.=--This plant is believed to be a species of Starwort. Virgil, in the Fourth Book of his Georgics, states that at Rome it was employed to decorate the altars of the gods. Gerarde says that the Starwort having a blue or purple flower is that referred to by Virgil as the Amellus in the following lines:-- “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.