About a month ago, I received some hyacinth bulbs we ordered on line. I have four of them growing in bulb vases forcing the roots out and the plant to grow.
This one started opening a week ago and smells wonderful. I have three others coming up and it looks like another two are going to be pink as well. The bulb vendor said various colors so I’m hoping to have some red, blue, yellow and white hyacinth flowers this spring.
There is this interesting story about these flowers originating from Greek mythology on Wikipedia:
In Greek mythology, Hyacinth was a beautiful youth loved by both the god Apollo and the West Wind, Zephyr. Apollo and Hyacinth took turns at throwing the discus. Hyacinth ran to catch it to impress Apollo, but he was struck by the discus as it fell to the ground, and died.
A twist in the tale makes the wind god Zephyrus responsible for the death of Hyacinth. The youth’s beauty caused a feud between Zephyrus and Apollo. Jealous that Hyacinth preferred the radiant archery god Apollo, Zephyrus blew Apollo’s discus off course, so as to injure and kill Hyacinth.
Apollo did not allow Hades to claim Hyacinth. Instead, Apollo made a flower, the hyacinth, from Hyacinth’s spilled blood.
Click on the image to enlarge.
