HYACINTH, also called JACINTH, one of the most popular of spring garden flowers (family Liliaceae). It was in cultivation prior to 1597, at which date it is mentioned by Gerard. Rea in 1665 mentions several single and double varieties as being then in English gardens, and Justice in 1 754 describes upwards of fifty single-flowered varieties, and nearly one hundred double-flowered ones, as a selection of the best from the catalogues of two then celebrated Dutch growers. One of the Dutch sorts, called La Reine de Femmes, a single white, is said to have produced from thirty f our to thirty-eight flowers in a spike, and on its first appearance to have sold for so guilders a bulb; while one called Overwinnaar, or Conqueror, a double blue, sold at first for ioo guilders, Gloria Mundi for 50o guilders, and Koning Saloman for 60o guilders. Several sorts are at that date mentioned as blooming well in water glasses. Justice relates that he himself raised several very valu able double-flowered kinds from seeds, which many of the sorts he describes are noted for producing freely.
The original of the cultivated hyacinth, Hyacinthus orientalis, a native of Greece and Asia Minor, is by comparison an insignifi cant plant, bearing on a spike only a few small, narrow-lobed, washy blue flowers, resembling in form those of our common blue bell. So great has been the improvement effected by the florists, and chiefly by the Dutch, that the modern hyacinth would scarcely be recognized as the descendant of the type above referred to, the spikes being long and dense, composed of a large number of flow ers; the spikes produced by strong bulbs not unfrequently measure 6 to 9 in. in length and from 7 to 9 in. in circumference, with the flowers closely set from bottom to top. Of late years much improvement has been effected in the size of the individual flowers and the breadth of their recurving lobes, as well as in securing increased brilliancy and depth of colour.
The peculiarities of the soil and climate of Holland are so very favourable to their production that Dutch florists have made a specialty of the growth of those and other bulbous-rooted flowers. Hundreds of acres are devoted to the growth of hyacinths in the vicinity of Haarlem.
In the spring flower garden few plants make a more effective display than the hyacinth. Dotted in clumps in the flower borders, and arranged in masses of well contrasted colours in beds in the flower garden, there are no flow ers which impart during their sea son—March and April—a gayer tone to the parterre. The bulbs are rarely grown a second time, either for indoor or outdoor cul ture, though with care they might be utilized for the latter pur pose ; and hence the enormous numbers which are procured each recurring year from Holland.
The first hyacinths were single flowered, but towards the close of the 17th century double-flow ered ones began to appear, and till a recent period these bulbs were the most esteemed. At the present time, however, the single-flowered sorts are in the ascendant, as they produce more regular and symmetrical spikes of blossom, the flowers being closely set and more or less horizontal in direction, while most of the double sorts have the bells distant and dependent, so that the spike is loose and by comparison ineffective. For pot culture, and for growth in water-glasses especially, the single flowered sorts are greatly to be preferred. Few if any of the original kinds are now in cultivation, a succession of new and improved varieties having been raised, the demand for which is regulated in some respects by fashion.