i68 THE ASSOCIATICWS OF FLOWERS 
before the stem and leaves are formed ; and this will 
greatly promote its strength. When a number of fibres 
are secured^ the glass should be removed to the window. 
By carefully cutting through the root of the hyacinth 
lengthways, the flower, which was shortly to have sprung 
up above it, is found formed in minute beauty within the 
bulb. Montgomery alludes to a similar circumstance in 
the root of the tulip : 
“ Here lies a bulb, the child of earth, 
Buried alive beneath the clod, 
Ere long to spring, by second birth, 
A new and nobler work of God. 
’Tis said that microscopic power 
Might through his swaddling folds descry 
The infant image of the flower. 
Too exquisite to meet the -eye.’'' 
The ancient poets told that the hyacinth received its 
name from Apollo, who unfortunately killed his friend, 
the youth Hyacinth, and then turned him into a flower, 
that he might ever bathe in morning dews, and drink the 
pure air of heaven. He is said to have imprinted the 
expression of sorrow in black streaks upon the leaves of 
the flower. The ancient festivals at Sparta, dedicated to 
Apollo, and termed Hyacinthus, were held in memory of 
this event, and were commemorated by two days of mirth 
and festivity and one of mourning. Hyacinths are used 
in the Greek isles at weddings, and worn both by the 
bride and her attendant maidens. 
The flowers m.entioned by classical writers have been 
the subjects of many discussions; and as no marks are 
found either on the flower or leaf of the plant termed 
in modern language hyacinth, several flowers have been 
mentioned by different authors as the hyacinth of the 
poets. It is now, however, generally believed, and Pro- 
fessor Martyn was fully of the opinion, that the ancient 
hyacinth was that red species of lily now called the Mar- 
tagon lilv, or Turk’s-cap. Virgil describes the flower as 
of a bright-red colour ; and it was said to be m.arked with 
the Greek exclamation of grief, AT, AT. The black marks 
