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Often seen as an adorable, old-fashioned, cottage garden flower with its long, graceful wine-red ropes of tiny burgundy blossoms The word amaranth comes from the Greek amárantos, meaning “unfading” with the Greek word for flower ánthos, forming amaranth, or unfading flower.They are easy to grow, adding vibrant, eye-catching color and drama to any garden, and cut bunches of the colorful tassels make riveting decorative vase flowers. Depending on the soil fertility, love lies bleeding can grow from 2 - 8’ tall with multiple 2’ long ropes of flowers, each made up of hundreds of individual tiny flowers. It is very hardy once established, capable of producing a crop of seeds with up to 40 days of no rain. It is drought tolerant once growing and thrives in full sun. Frost helps dry the seeds, preparing them for harvest.Both the seeds and young leaves are edible and quite tasty. The seeds have a nutty flavor and are toasted like sesame seeds, cooked like oatmeal, popped like popcorn, and ground into flour. Young leaves and stems are used like spinach or stir-fried in Asian countries. The cereal-like grain (about the size of a poppy seed) is high in protein, and high in lysine, an amino acid usually deficient in vegetables. In fact, amaranth seeds are extremely nutritious, with more protein than most cereals and a better balance of amino acids for the human diet than any other plant.