48 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



is it that sprang from the dead boy's blood ? A 

 flower that is purple — and the Greek purple, 

 which included many shades of red — was a colour 

 in no way related to the French greys and 

 violet blue that are all our hyacinths can show, 

 but which is the colour of the common purple 

 iris. A flower that was like a lily, which our 

 hyacinth is not, excepting only the lily of the 

 valley — a solitary and most untypical lily in 

 its way of blooming ; but which an iris may be 

 taken to be, seeing its long confusion and 

 identification with the lilies of France. And 

 a flower that memorialised the sun - god's grief, 

 and was inscribed with signs of it : an inscription 

 on the hyacinth is hard to seek, for though it is 

 true some learned person has given the common 

 wood hyacinth the surname iVon-scriptus, what 

 one, especially if one were a grower, would really 

 like to see, is a hyacinth that is scriptus. The 

 iris, on the other hand, has well-defined marks 

 upon it, such as fancy can easily make sign- 

 writing of sorts ; which, indeed, fancy has so made 

 in other tales — the tale of their springing from 

 Ajax's blood and bearing his name upon them, 

 and the tale of their growing from the grave 

 of the illiterate saint, and being marked with 



