Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris, or, A garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be noursed vp / a kitchen garden of all manner of herbes, rootes & fruites for meate or sauce vsed with vs, and, an orchard of all sorte of fruitbearing trees and shrubbes fit for our land, together with the right orderinge, planting & preseruing of them and their vses & vertues

by John Parkinson

All these Orientall Iacinths, except the last, haue beene brought out of Turkie, and from Constantinople: but where their true originall place is, is not as yet vnderstood.

The Time.

The two first (as is said) flower the earliest, sometimes before Christmas, but more vsually after, and abide a great while in flower, in great beauty, especially if the weather be milde, when as few or no other flowers at that time are able to match them. The other greatest kinde flowreth also earlier then the rest that follow, for the most part. The ordinary kindes flower some in March, and some in Aprill, and some sooner also; and so doe the double ones likewise. The bushy stalked Iacinth flowreth much about the same time.

The Names.

The former two sorts are called Hyacinthus Orientalis Brumalis, and Hyacinthus Orientalis præcox flore albo, or cæruleo. The third is called of many Zumbul Indicum, or Zumbul Indi, and corruptly Simboline; of others, and that more properly, Hyacinthus Orientalis maior præcox. The Turkes doe call all Iacinths Zumbul, and by adding the name of Indi, or Arabi, do shew from what place they are receiued. In English, The greatest Orientall Iacinth; yet some doe call it after the Turkish name Zumbul Indi, or Simboline, as is said before. The rest haue their names set downe in their titles, which are most fit for them.

Hyacinthus Hispanicus minor Orientalis facie. The little Summer Orientall Iacinth.

Flore cæruleo.

This little Iacinth hath foure or fiue long narrow greene leaues, lying vpon the ground, among which riseth vp a slender smooth stalke, about a spanne high or more, bearing at the toppe many slender bleake blew flowers, with some white stripes and edges to be seene in most of them, fashioned very like vnto the flowers of the Orientall Iacinth, but much smaller: the flower hath no sent at all; the seede is like the seede of the English Iacinth, or Hares-bels: the roote is small and white.

Flore albo.

There is another of this kinde, differing in nothing but in the colour of the flower, which is pure white.