Size 16cm high x 11cm diameter
Hyacinths are often associated with spring and rebirth. The hyacinth flower is used in the Haft-Seen table setting for the PersianNew Year celebration, Nowruz, held at the Spring Equinox.
The hyacinth appears in the first section of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land during a conversation between the narrator and the "hyacinth girl" that takes place in the spring.
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
In Roman Catholic tradition, the hyacinthrepresents prudence, constancy, desire of heaven and peace of mind; and is derived from the story of Hyacinthus, upon whose death the flower sprang forth.
Hyacinthus grows from bulbs, each producing around four to six linear leaves and one to three spikes or racemes of flowers. In the wild species, the flowers are widely spaced with as few as two per raceme in H. litwinovii and typically six to eight in H. orientalis which grows to a height of 15–20 cm (6–8 in). Cultivars of H. orientalis have much denser flower spikes and are generally more robust.