THE CLASSICAL PLANTS OF SICILY. 103 
The flowers vary much in colour : they are blue, violet, pink, 
red, or purple, and in this respect the following passages 
prove the two flowers to correspond. Theocritus has, Zdyl. 
X. v. 28, 
Kal rò foy widow &yri, xal à ypurró, ' Xáxilog. — 
Virgil says, —Suavé rubens Hyacinthus ( Ec. iii. v. 63.) 
and,—ferrugineos Hyacinthos (Georg. iv. v. 183. 
Ovid describes it as purple,— 
Tyrioque nitentior Ostro. (Met. x. v. 211.) 
Rubefactaque sanguine tellus 
Purpureum viridi genuit de cespite florem. (Met. xiii. v. 395.) 
But the great objection to referring this Hyacinth to 
a species of Delphinium is, that Ovid describes the former to 
be of the same shape as that of a white Lily,— 
Flos oritur, formamque capit, quam Lilia; si non 
Purpureus color huic, argenteus esset in illis.—(Met. x. v. 212.) 
I do not know that there is in Europe any native Liliaceous 
plant with lettered flowers; nor that there exists any other 
species whose petals bear the dark lines, which so strongly 
resemble AI AI, and AIA[ except the Delphinium Ajacis, 
and D. Pubescens; but the first not being indigenous in 
Greece, Italy, and Sicily; the second will therefore with 
greater reason answer to the Hyacinthus of Ovid and Virgil 
and to the "Yax»écc, of Theocritus and Moschus. Dioscorides 
likewise having mentioned that the AsAgivov tre» was named 
by some idz»éoc, greatly confirms this supposition. 
It is singular that among the synonyma of D. Pubescens 
are, Consolida regalis, C. regia, and Flos regius; so also 
Virgil— 
Inscripti nomina Regúm 
Nascantur flores. 
The lettered Hyacinth, ‘A ygezrà 'Yáxmbos, (Theoc.), the 
Royal-flower or King-flower, had not, strictly speaking, the 
names of Kings inscribed on it; but a part of the name of a 
son of a king, Ajax the son of Telemon, and the exclamations 
