BOOK XXI. xxxviii. 65-xxxix. 67 



The last to bloom is the rose, which is also the first 

 to fade, except the cultivated kind. Of the others, 

 the hvacinth lasts longest in flower with the white 

 violet and the oenanthe, but the last only if by 

 repeated phicking it is prevented from running to 

 seed. It grows in warm districts, and has the same 

 scent as forming grapes : hence the name." The 

 hyacinth is associated with two forms of a legend ; 

 one that it displays the mourning for that youth 

 whom Ajiollo had loved, and the other that it sprang 

 from the shed blood of Ajax, the veins of the flower 

 heing so arranged that on it is to be read AI in- 

 scribed in the form of Greek letters. Heliochrysus 

 has a flower like gold, a sliglit leaf and also a slender 

 but hard stem. The Magi think that to wear a 

 chaplet of this plant, if unguents too be taken from 

 a box of the gold called apvron, leads also to 

 popularity and glory in Hfe. These then are the 

 flowers of spring. 



XXXIX. After them come the summer flowers, 

 lychnis,*' Jupiter's flower, a second kind of Ulv, the 

 iph)'on '^ also and the amaracus surnamed Phry- 

 gian. But the most beautiful to the eye is the 

 pothos.** There are two kinds of it : one having the 

 flower of the hyacinth, the other being white and 

 commonly grown for graves, because it lasts well 

 witliout fading.'' The iris also blooms in summer. 

 But these too wither and pass away, to be followed 

 again by others in autumn — ^a third kind of Uly, the 

 safFron crocus and the t.wo kinds of orsinus,/ one 

 without and one with perfume, all of them peeping 



^ An uriknown plant. Jan thinks that Pliny has mis- 

 translated Tlieophrastus, H.P, VI. 7, among other mistakes, 

 taking the 6p(.iv6% of the latter to be ^poivos. 



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