AMBRO SIA, in ancient mythology, sometimes the food, sometimes the drink, of the immortals. The word has generally been derived from Gr. a, not, and ,u(/3)paros, mortal. A. W. Ver rall, however, denies that there is any clear example in which the Greek word ambrosios necessarily means "immortal," and ex plains it as "fragrant," a sense which is always suitable. If so, the word may be derived from the Semitic ambar (ambergris), to which Eastern nations attributed miraculous properties. W. H. Roscher thinks that both nectar and ambrosia were kinds of honey. The name Ambrosia was also later applied by Dioscorides and Pliny to certain herbs, and has been retained in modern botany for a genus of plants from which it has been extended to the group of dicotyledons called Ambrosiaceae, including Ambrosia, Xan thium, and Iva, all annual herbaceous plants represented in America. Ambrosia maritima and some other species occur also in the Mediterranean regions.
There is also an American beetle, the Ambrosia beetle, be longing to the family of Scolytidae, which derives its name from its cultivation of a succulent fungus, called ambrosia. Ambrosia beetles bore galleries into timber, and the wood-dust provides a bed for the fungus on which the insects and larvae feed.