38 BRODI^A COCCINEA. SCARLET CALIFORNIA- HYACINTH. 



Is truth scarce veiled by fiction : — Hyacinth, 

 Beloved by Zephyr and Apollo both, 

 Preferred the Sun-god to the Western wind, 

 Who, thereat angry, wafted him his death. 

 Is not the sun more welcome thai the breeze 

 To all these fragile blossoms ? Doth not oft 

 A sudden gale rend stems and murder flowers? 

 You see the fable's not so far from truth. 

 My lovely sceptic." 



It Is indeed the mission of real poetry to place homely truths 

 before us in pleasant guise, and to this end few things offer them- 

 selves more acceptably than flowers to the true poetic spirit ; and 

 when our native flowers shall have received the attention they 

 deserve, our " California Hyacinths " may have as much to tell 

 us of our lands as the ancient Hyacinths have sang to us of theirs. 



This pretty species has a little history, which Professor 

 Alphonso Wood, with commendable feeling, endeavored to ideal- 

 ize. The plant was unknown to any botanist till 1867, when 

 Professor Wood, riding across the high hills of the Trinity moun- 

 tains in California, had it pointed out to him by the stage-driver, 

 who, in admiration of its simple beauty, as he told Professor 

 Wood, had named it "after his little daughter, Ida-May." A 

 botanist is not called on by the needs of science to regard the 

 affections or desires of the common people who may not be bot- 

 anists ; but it is to their credit to regard them when they feel 

 that they may. It shows that even dry science can enter into the 

 heart of humanity. Dr. Wood at that time believed the plant to 

 be a new genus. He named \\. Bixvoortia, in honor of J. Carson 

 Brevoort, of Brooklyn, a regent of the University of the State of 

 New York ; and for its specific name Bi^cvoortia Ida-maia, as 

 well to commemorate the parental affection of the driver for his 

 daughter, as that he " saw it first on the ides (15th) of May." In 

 striking contrast with this pleasant effort of Professor Wood are 

 the supposed needs of science. In the " Memoirs of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences" for 1867, Professor Asa Gray 

 gives reasons for setting aside the name of Brevoortia, and 

 placing the species in the older genus, Brodicea, and remarks : 



