According to one writer on mythology, the hyacinth flower sprang up from the blood of a Greek youth Hyacinthus who was killed in a game of discus throwing, and whom the god Apollo loved.
Botanical Origin
In the past, two varieties of hyacinth flower were used for the extraction of the flower oil: Hyacinthus orientalis L. and Hyacinthus non scriptus L. The first variety is cultivated and the second grows wild in South France, Holland is another country cultivating hyacinth.
Through the ages, a number of plants have been identified as hyacinth, and Linnaeus included fifty more or less related plants in the genus Hyacinthus. Modern botanists consider only Hyacinthus orientalis, which originated in Asia Minor and spread into cultivation in the fifteenth century, as Hyacinthus.
