hyacinth

Hyacinthus grows from bulbs, each producing around 4-6 narrow untoothed leaves and 1-3 spikes or racemes of flowers. In wild species, the flowers are widely spaced, with as few as 2 per raceme in H. litwinovii and typically 6-8 in H. orientalis which grows to a height of {{convert|15|–|20|cm|in|0|abbr=on}}. Cultivars of H. orientalis have much denser flower spikes and are generally more robust.{{Citation|year=1993 |editor-last=Beckett |editor-first=K. |title=Encyclopaedia of Alpines : Volume 1 (A–K) |location=Pershore, UK |publisher=AGS Publications |isbn=978-0-900048-61-6 }} pp. 656–657.

File:Hyacinthus transcaspicus GotBot 2015.JPG]]

The genus name Hyacinthus was attributed to Joseph Pitton de Tournefort when used by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. It is derived from a Greek name used for a plant by Homer, {{lang|grc|ὑάκινθος}} ({{lang|grc-Latn|hyákinthos}}), the flowers supposedly having grown up from the blood of a youth of this name killed by the god Zephyr out of jealousy.{{Citation |last1=Hyam |first1=R. |last2=Pankhurst |first2=R.J. |year=1995 |title=Plants and their names : a concise dictionary |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-866189-4 |name-list-style=amp }} The original wild plant known as hyakinthos to Homer has been identified with Scilla bifolia,{{Citation |last=Lindsell |first=Alice |title=Was Theocritus a botanist? }} in {{Citation |last1=Raven |first1=John E. |date=2000 |editor1-last=Raven |editor1-first=Faith |editor2-last=Stearn |editor2-first=William T. |editor3-last=Jardine |editor3-first=Nicholas |editor4-last=Frasca-Spada |editor4-first=Marina |title=Plants and Plant Lore in Ancient Greece |publication-place=Oxford |publisher=Leopard's Head Press |isbn=978-0-904920-40-6 |page=27 |name-list-style=amp }}, p. 68 among other possibilities. Linnaeus defined the genus Hyacinthus widely to include species now placed in other genera of the subfamily Scilloideae, such as Muscari (e.g. his Hyacinthus botryoides){{Citation |contribution=Hyacinthus botryoides |title=World Checklist of Selected Plant Families |publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew |url=http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/namedetail.do?name_id=278581 |access-date=2013-03-20 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} and Hyacinthoides (e.g. his Hyacinthus non-scriptus).{{Citation |contribution=Hyacinthus non-scriptus |title=World Checklist of Selected Plant Families |publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew |url=http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/namedetail.do?name_id=278654 |access-date=2013-03-20 |archive-date=2012-04-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120423110153/http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/namedetail.do?name_id=278654 |url-status=dead }}

Hyacinthus was formerly the type genus of the separate family Hyacinthaceae; prior to that, the genus was placed in the lily family Liliaceae.{{Citation |url=http://www.tolweb.org/Hyacinthaceae |title=Hyacinthaceae |publisher=Tolweb.org |access-date=2011-03-20 }}

Three species are placed within the genus Hyacinthus:

• Hyacinthus litwinovii – north-east Iran to southern Turkmenistan
• Hyacinthus orientalis - Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Turkey; common, Dutch or garden hyacinth{{Cite web|url=https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:536789-1|title= Hyacinthus orientalis}}
• Hyacinthus transcaspicus – north-east Iran to southern Turkmenistan

Some authorities place H. litwonovii and H. transcaspicus in the related genus Hyacinthella,{{Citation |last=Czerepanov |first=S.K. |year=1995 |title=Vascular Plants of Russia and Adjacent States (the Former USSR) |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-45006-5 }}, cited in {{Citation |title=World Checklist of Selected Plant Families |publisher=The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew |url=https://apps.kew.org/wcsp/home.do |access-date=2011-10-07 }}, under Hyacinthella litwinovii and Hyacinthella transcaspica which would make Hyacinthus a monotypic genus.

The genus Hyacinthus is considered native to the eastern Mediterranean from southern Turkey to the region of Palestine, including Lebanon and Syria, and on through Iraq and Iran to Turkmenistan. It is widely naturalized elsewhere, including Europe (Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Sardinia, Sicily and former Yugoslavia), Cyprus, North America (California, Pennsylvania, Texas), central Mexico, the Caribbean (Cuba, Haiti) and Korea.

The Dutch, or common hyacinth, of house and garden culture (H. orientalis, native to Southwest Asia) was so popular in the 18th century that over 2,000 cultivars were grown in the Netherlands, its chief commercial producer. This hyacinth has a single dense spike of fragrant flowers in shades of red, blue, white, orange, pink, violet or yellow. A form of the common hyacinth is the less hardy and smaller blue- or white-petalled Roman hyacinth. These flowers need full sunlight and should be watered moderately.{{Cite web |title=What are the Light Needs for Roman hyacinth in Gardening? (Type, Characteristics, and Warning Signals) |url=https://www.picturethisai.com/care/sunlight/Bellevalia_romana.html |access-date=2024-06-27 |website=PictureThis |language=en}}

The inedible bulbs contain oxalic acid and may cause mild skin irritation. Protective gloves are recommended when handling.{{citation |url=http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8507.html |title=Home Forcing of Hyacinths |work=North Carolina State University Horticulture Information |access-date=2013-03-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130404065021/http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8507.html |archive-date=2013-04-04 |url-status=dead }}

Some members of the plant subfamily Scilloideae are commonly called hyacinths but are not members of the genus Hyacinthus and are edible; one example is the tassel hyacinth, which forms part of the cuisine of some Mediterranean countries.{{Cite web |date=2010-04-27 |title=Traditional Foods of Puglia Italy-Cooking Lampascioni Hyacinth Bulbs |url=https://italian-connection.com/living-in-italy/traditional-foods-of-puglia-italy-cooking-lampascioni-hyacinth-bulbs/ |access-date=2024-06-27 |website=Italian Connection |language=en-US}}

File:Nowruz Sonbol (Hyacinth).JPG

Hyacinths are often associated with spring and rebirth.{{Cite web |title=Hyacinthus {{!}} Youth, Beauty & Tragedy {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hyacinthus |access-date=2025-03-09 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}} The hyacinth flower is used in the Haft-Seen table setting for the Persian New Year celebration, Nowruz, held at the spring equinox. The Persian word for hyacinth is {{Lang|fa|سنبل}} ({{Lang|fa|sonbol}}), meaning 'cluster'.

The name {{Lang|grc|ὑάκινθος}} ({{Lang|grc|hyakinthos}}) was used in Ancient Greece for at least two distinct plants, which have variously been identified as Scilla bifolia or Orchis quadripunctata and Consolida ajacis (larkspur).{{sfnp|Raven|2000|p=27}} Plants known by this name were sacred to Aphrodite.{{cite book |last1=Kurke |first1=Leslie |title=Coins, bodies, games, and gold : the politics of meaning in archaic Greece |date=1999 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, NJ |isbn=0691007365 |page=192}}

The hyacinth appears in the first section of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land during a conversation between the narrator and the "hyacinth girl" that takes place in the spring.{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land|title=The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot|date=2018-09-05|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en-us|others=Poetry Foundation|access-date=2018-09-05}}

{{Blockquote|

You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;

"They called me the hyacinth girl."

—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

}}

In Roman Catholic tradition, H. orientalis represents prudence, constancy, desire of heaven, and peace of mind.{{cite web |title=Signs and Symbols |url=http://www.catholictradition.org/Saints/signs4.htm |website=catholictradition.org |access-date=2019-01-22}}

American rock band The Doors released a song entitled "Hyacinth House" which appeared on their 1971 album L.A. Woman, the last to feature lead singer Jim Morrison.

The colour of the blue flower hyacinth plant varies between 'mid-blue',Mathew, Brian (1987), The Smaller Bulbs, London: B.T. Batsford, {{ISBN|978-0-7134-4922-8}} violet blue and bluish purple. Within this range can be found Persenche, which is an American color name (probably from French), for a hyacinth hue.{{cite web |url=https://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/Color/M.htm |title=(M) |access-date=2015-09-24 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150917005032/http://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/Color/M.htm |archive-date=2015-09-17 }}

The colour analysis of Persenche is 73% ultramarine, 9% red and 18% white.Funk & Wagnell's New Standard Dictionary (1942), under spectrum color list.

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File:P1130470 Hyacinthus orientalis Common hyacinth (Hyacinthaceae).JPG|Wild-type Hyacinthus orientalis in cultivation

File:HyacinthPink.jpg|Pink cultivar

File:Hyacinths - floriade canberra.jpg|Hyacinth cultivars in Floriade, Canberra

File:Floriade canberra02.jpg|Hyacinth cultivars in Floriade, Canberra

File:White and purple hyacinths.JPG|White and purple hyacinth cultivars in Detroit, Michigan

File:Young boy picking hyacinths in Normandy - 1993.jpg|Young boy picking hyacinths in Normandy in France

File:Blue Hyacinth Cross Section of flowers.jpg|Cross section of Hyacinth orientalis cultivar

• Tekhelet - meaning "bluish violet" or "blue" in Hebrew, was translated as hyakinthos (Greek: ὑακίνθος, "hyacinth").

{{Reflist}}

• Coccoris, Patricia (2012) The Curious History of the Bulb Vase. Published by Cortex Design.

{{Commons}}

• [http://www.flowerbulbs.cornell.edu/newsletter/No.%204%20Hyacinth%20Perennializing.pdf Hyacinth perennialization Research Newsletter Number 4. (October 2004) Flower Bulb Research Program Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXm5cwRmDAs Grow up and blossoming of Hyacinth]

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Category:Scilloideae

Category:Asparagaceae genera

Category:Garden plants of Asia

Category:Taxa named by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort