50 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



would have found their way by Italy and Germany into Western 

 Europe. It is also possible they were brought over by the 

 Crusaders to Italy and the south of France, as the Ranunculus 

 asiaticus seems to have been. Paxton and a good many others 

 confirm the fact that Hyacinths came from the Levant, and 

 state that Hyacinthus orientalis was introduced to us in the 

 year 1596. I believe that they must have been imported much 

 earlier. Clusius states in 1611 that they were introduced in 1585 ; 

 but the fact that they were already mentioned as grown in the 

 Leyden botanical garden in the first manuscript catalogue by 

 Peter Paauw, of the year 1600, and the fact that in another 

 catalogue (also a manuscript catalogue) of 1602 that they culti- 

 vated several varieties of Hyacinthus -orientalis, amongst which 

 the same Peter Paauw describes one as Hyacinthus orientalis 

 flare luxuriante, go to show that they grew them already in 

 quantity in 1600, and they had one flore luxuriante in 1602. We 

 may therefore assume that they had been cultivated many 

 years before the time mentioned by Clusius ; at any rate the pro- 

 gress made in the fifteen years appeared to be too great for that 

 period. But we have another proof. Matthias de Lobel, in 

 1576, stated that " the best Hyacinth known in Holland was the 

 Hyacinthus brumalis, which," he says, 14 got later the name of 

 Orientalis albus." His speaking of the best Hyacinth in Hol- 

 land, I think, proves that there must have been, besides that 

 variety, some other Hyacinths, and consequently those must 

 have been introduced before 1576. It is rather difficult to say 

 whether this H. orientalis albus was a species or a variety. If it 

 were a species, it was most likely the same as Hyacinthus 

 romanus. At least, when we compare those described by Miller 

 as Orientalis brumalis prcscocissimus flore albo and Orientalis 

 brumalis flora pallida cceruleo with the engravings in Swertiusor 

 in Besler's " HortusEystettensis," we find them in habit and form 

 very like our well-known White Roman Hyacinth. Probably, 

 therefore, Miller made a mistake in saying that these Brumalis 

 forms were derived from Hyacinthus anglicus. Miller himself 

 says that this early white was commonly called Januarius, and 

 the pale blue Imperialis. Fuchs tells us that they flowered 

 in his garden in December ; and Peter Hondius states in his 

 most curious book, 44 The Muizenschans," published in Dutch in 

 the year 1621, that amongst the different kinds of Hyacinths, 



