“WHEN SPRING UNLOCKS THE FLOWERS TO PAINT
THE LAUGHING SOIL”
Some people imagine that a bulb which has been kept from flowering can reserve itself for the following year. Many such experiments have been made, and bulbs have been kept back on the shelves and have not been allowed to flower; they have invariably perished, and, growers say, scarcely a year passes that they have not tried the experiment,—they have lost every bulb which was not put into the ground. As a rule the sap in a bulb will be sufficient nourishment during its ordinary growth till January or February, but after that it will begin to grow mouldy and go bad. The moment it is put in earth or over water, in the proper season, the bulb, which is just beginning to be exhausted, pumps up sap so vigorously that it begins at once to throw out roots from almost the first day, and growers dare not move them again, even a few hours after they have been put in, to send them away, however carefully packed, even a short distance, for fear the fresh moisture they have sucked up so quickly should cause them to rot, and they even consider it a dangerous process to change them from one place to another, in the same bed, if they have been but half an hour in the ground. The roots, which are in such a hurry to show themselves when first the bulbs are planted, perish as quickly as they grow. They stop growing before the flower is in full bloom, and are always quite dried up before the seed begins to ripen. While the root is perishing the flower continues, the stem grows, and all the flowers expand completely. When the flower is quite over and the seed is left to ripen, the sap goes into the leaves, which lengthen considerably, then these die in their turn, till they separate from the bulb of themselves.
Chapter II.—Bulbs
It has already been shown what sort of appearance the outer tunics present, and it has been explained how the tunics in general are formed. We are now going to push our examination further. After divesting the bulb of seven or eight tunics (or fans), one comes (A) upon a little thin flattened thread of crimson colour, like a line. It is, as it were, embedded in one of the tunics; it starts from the base of the bulb and rises to the extreme top.
Continuing to take away again the same number of tunics, one comes upon a second thread (B) like the first, A, only that it is less red and thicker; then, for the third time, taking off another seven or eight tunics, one meets with a third line or fillet (C), very like the two first, with this difference, it is quite white and much thicker. Under the last fillet are the new leaves (or fans), beginning to bud, about seven or eight in number, and in the centre of them is the stem, which is going to flower in a few months.
Now all the tunics are supposed to be taken off, and only the three fillets or threads which we spoke of are left (A, B, C). Fillet A is all that is left (within the bulb) of the stem which flowered eighteen months ago.
Fillet C is the remains of the stem of the last flower borne by the bulb, six months before.
Fillet D is the stem which is about to flower in six months’ time (the flower buds are already sufficiently formed to be seen), and E contains the stem and tunic leaves, which are to come into bud in another eighteen months.
If, when the bulb is in full flower, you divest it of all its tunics, till you come to the flower stem,—you will find at the base of it a very tiny bud; if you take away the stem, which easily breaks off, you will find the bud remains firmly attached to the base of the bulb. If you open the bud with a penknife, you will see it is composed of six or seven little leaves (or fans), and inside a tiny stem, furnished with buds, which has begun to grow already, and from the moment the bulb is laid on the shelves it increases till the time comes for putting it again in the earth. We have been speaking all this time of the double hyacinth. The single hyacinth is somewhat differently constructed, for it usually throws out several shoots from the sides as well as from the centre. The single bulb does not appear to last so long, for its fillets are fewer, but the number of flowering stems it produces, and the irregularity of their growth, makes it difficult to follow it in its various stages of development as exactly as one can the double. By dint of observing, year after year, bulbs, both those in a good state of preservation and some partially decomposed, it has been discovered that the bulb always loses the same number of outer tunics as it gains interiorly new ones. When once a bulb has acquired the regulation number of tunics, it will always keep to the same number year by year, and nevertheless every year it is putting forth seven or eight from its centre. The outer tunics, which we call “red skin,” regularly shrivel and decay in the earth, and thus they disappear.