The two following legends have more distinctly the character
of Vegetation myths.

Adonis or Tammuz, the Syrian god of vegetation, was
a very beautiful youth, born of a Virgin (Nature), and so
beautiful that Venus and Proserpine (the goddesses of the
Upper and Underworlds) both fell in love with him.
To reconcile their claims it was agreed that he should
spend half the year (summer) in the upper world, and the
winter half with Proserpine below. He was killed by a
boar (Typhon) in the autumn. And every year the maidens
"wept for Adonis" (see Ezekiel viii. 14). In the spring
a festival of his resurrection was held--the women set out
to seek him, and having found the supposed corpse
placed it (a wooden image) in a coffin or hollow tree, and
performed wild rites and lamentations, followed by even
wilder rejoicings over his supposed resurrection. At Aphaca
in the North of Syria, and halfway between Byblus and
Baalbec, there was a famous grove and temple of Astarte,
near which was a wild romantic gorge full of trees, the
birthplace of a certain river Adonis--the water rushing from
a Cavern, under lofty cliffs. Here (it was said) every year
the youth Adonis was again wounded to death, and the
river ran red with his blood,[1] while the scarlet anemone
bloomed among the cedars and walnuts.

[1] A discoloration caused by red earth washed by rain from the
mountains, and which has been observed by modern travelers. For
the whole story of Adonis and of Attis see Frazer's Golden Bough,
part iv.