HYACINTH. 127 



and bright) whether plain yellow, red, blue, or 

 white ; or variously intermixed and diversified in 

 the eye — which is thought to give additional lustre 

 and elegance to the Hyacinth. Strong bright 

 colours are in greater request, and bear a higher 

 price than such as are pale. Under bad treatment, 

 good Hyacinths will degenerate in two or three 

 years ; but in Holland they have been preserved 

 perfect for nearly a century. 



The Hyacinth has a coated bulb, that is, it con- 

 sists of a number of concentric laminae, like the 

 onion, and it is hence termed bulbus t urticatus ; but 

 the natural history of the Hyacinth differs as much 

 from the onion in the economy of its nature as in 

 its perfume. 



Every body knows that the bulb of the common 

 onion is exhausted by its flower stem, and that 

 when it has performed its oviparous duties, as 

 ordained by nature, there are no remains of the 

 bulb left. Not so with the Hyacinth : there Nature 

 works in a more complicated manner; for whilst the 

 stem is sent out of the earth to form its seed, the 

 bulb is forming a new germ or bud within the next 

 coat or circle of the laminae ; and thus whilst the 

 flower stem is exhausting the old germ or heart of 

 the bulb, a regeneration is taking place within the 

 body for the succeeding year : nor is this all, for as 

 the Hyacinth possesses a viviparous nature also, it 



