258 BULBS AND TUBEROUS-ROOTED PLANTS. 
PLANTIA, 
A small genus of Cape bulbs now included in Hexa- 
glottis, Page 137. 
POLIANTHES TUBEROSA. 
Tuberose. 
Everyone who has a garden, or a taste for flowers, 
knows the Tuberose. Its history, however, may not be 
known. D. F. Fish, in his book on ‘‘ Bulbs and their 
Culture,” says it is a native of Italy. In Nicholson’s 
‘Dictionary of Gardening,” Mexico has the honor of 
its nativity. ‘Two species make up the genus. 
In Parkinson’s quaint old book, ‘‘The Garden of 
Pleasant Flowers,” published in 1629, we find the follow- 
ing description of it, under its then known name of 
Hyacinth, with which it was classed: ‘* Hyacinthus 
Indicus major tuberosa radice, ‘the greater Indian 
Knobbed Jacinth.’ I have thought fittest to begin with 
this Jacinth (Hyacinth), both because it is the greatest 
and highest, and also because the flowers herof are in 
some likenesse neare unto a Daffodille, although his 
roote be tuberous, and not bulbous, as the rest are. 
This Indian Jacinth hath a thicke knobbed roote (yet 
formed into several heads, somewhat like unto bulbous 
roots), with many thick fibres at the bottom of them ; 
from the divers heads of this roote arise divers strong 
and very tall stalkes, beset with divers faire, long and | 
broad leaves, joined at the bottome close unto the stalk, 
where they are the greatest, and smaller to the very end, 
and those that grow higher to the toppe, being smaller 
and smaller. The toppes of the stalkes are garnished 
with many faire, large, white flowers, each wherof is 
composed of six leaves, lying spread open as the flowers 
of the white Daffodil, with some short threads in the 
middle, and of a very sweet scent, or rather strong and 
heades.” 
