146 A GUIDE TO FLORICULTURE. 



HYACINTH. 



(HYACINTHUS ORIENTALIS.) 



** Shade loving Hyacinthus ! thou comest again, 

 And the rich odors seem to swell the flow, 

 And the lark's song, the red-breast's lonely strain, 

 And the songster's tune, best sung where wild flowers blow, 

 And ever sweeter where the sweetest glow." 



This very prepossessing bulbous flowering plant is a 

 native of the Levant, and is quite common about Bagdad, 

 where it flowers very profusely in its native state in the 

 spring, at the same time as with us ; being highly fragrant, 

 makes it very desirable. The bulb is glabrous, succulent, 

 sending forth a scape with a spike of flowers of funnel shape, 

 half six-cleft, ventricous at the base ; some are single and oth- 

 ers double ; the latter, strictly speaking, is the florist's flower; 

 but the single are gaining favor fast, and more sought after 

 for early flowering in glasses. The double is certainly 

 more desirable for beds or borders of the flower garden. 

 The single emits its fragrance more sensibly, and its spikes 

 are more studded with bells than the double, and for 

 this reason they are more sought after, to flower in 

 glasses. 



The Hyacinth has been cultivated in Europe above 

 three hundred years, and was imported by the Dutch orig- 

 inally from the Levant ; and it appears that the climate of 

 Holland, more especially about Harlem, is more congenial 

 to its culture than any other part of Europe, arid the Dutch 

 florists have bestowed much pains on it. It appears that 



