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

The Hyacinthus, seemeth to be called Vacinium of Virgil in his Eclogues; for hee alwayes reckoneth it among the flowers that were vsed to decke Garlands, and neuer among fruits, as some would haue it. But in that hee calleth it Vacinium nigrum, in seuerall places, that doth very fitly answer the common receiued custome of those times, that called all deepe blew colours, such as are purples, and the like, blacke; for the Violet it selfe is likewise called blacke in the same place, where he calleth the Vacinium blacke; so that it seemeth thereby, that he reckoned them to be both of one colour, and we know the colour of the Violet is not blacke, as we doe distinguish of blacke in these dayes. But the colour of this Starry Iacinth, being both of so deepe a purple sometimes, so neare vnto a Violet colour, and also more frequent, then any other Iacinth with them, in those places where Virgil liued, perswadeth me to thinke, that Virgil vnderstood this Starry Iacinth by Vacinium: Let others iudge otherwise, if they can shew greater probabilitie.

{Starry Iacinths of Constantinople}

1. Hyacinthus Stellatus Byzantinus nigra radice. The Starry Iacinth of Turkie with the blacke roote.

This Starry Iacinth of Constantinople hath three or foure fresh greene, thinne, and long leaues, of the bignesse of the English Iacinth, but not so long, betweene which riseth vp a slender lowe stalke, bearing fiue or six small flowers, dispersedly set thereon, spreading open like a starre, of a pale or bleake blew colour: the leaues of the flowers are somewhat long, and stand as it were somewhat loosly, one off from another, and not so compactly together, as the flowers of other kindes: it seldome beareth ripe seede with vs, because the heads are so heauie, that lying vpon the ground, they rotte with the wet, or are bitten with the frosts, or both, so that they seldome come to good: the roote is small in some, and reasonable bigge in others, round, and long, white within, but couered with deepe reddish or purplish peelings, next vnto it, and darker and blacker purple on the outside, with some long and thicke white fibres, like fingers hanging at the bottome of them, as is to be seene in many other Iacinths: the roote it selfe for the most part doth runne downewards, somewhat deep into the ground.

2. Hyacinthus Stellatus Byzantinus maior. The greater Starry Iacinth of Constantinople.

This Iacinth may rightly be referred to the former Iacinth of Constantinople, and called the greater, it is so like thereunto, that any one that knoweth that, will soone say, that this is another of that sort, but greater as it is in all his parts, bearing larger leaues by much, and more store, lying vpon the ground round about the roote: it beareth many lowe stalkes of flowers, as bleake, and standing as loosly as the former: onely the roote of this, is not black on the outside, as the other, but three times bigger.

3. Hyacinthus Stellatus Byzantinus alter, siue flore boraginis. The other Starry Iacinth of Constantinople.

This other Iacinth hath for the most part onely foure leaues, broader and greener then the first, but not so large or long as the second: the stalke hath fiue or six flowers vpon it, bigger and rounder set, like other starry Iacinths, of a more perfect or deeper blew then either of the former, hauing a whitish greene head or vmbone in the middle, beset with six blew chiues or threeds, tipt with blacke, so closly compassing the vmbone, that the threeds seeme so many prickes stucke into a clubbe or head; some therefore haue likened it to the flower of Borage, and so haue called it: after the flowers are past, come vp round white heads, wherein is contained round and white seede: the roote is of a darke whitish colour on the outside, and sometimes a little reddish withall.

The Place.

The first and the last haue beene brought from Constantinople; the first among many other rootes, and the last by the Lord Zouch, as Lobel witnesseth. The second hath been sent vs out of the Lowe-Countries, but from whence they had it, we do not certainly know. They growe with vs in our Gardens sufficiently.