De plant kreeg zijn wetenschappelijke naam van Carl Linnaeus, die hem als Hyacinthus non-scriptus in het geslacht Hyacinthus plaatste.[1] Linnaeus verwees voor eerder gepubliceerde beschrijvingen en voor synoniemen naar zijn eigen Hortus Cliffortianus (1738),[2] naar Florae leydensis prodromus (1740) van Adriaan van Royen,[3] en naar de Pinax theatri botanici (1623) van Gaspard Bauhin.[4] De referenties hebben gemeen dat ze naar "Hyacinthus non-scriptus" in Stirpium historiae pemptades sex (1583) van Rembert Dodoens verwijzen. Bauhin vermeldt daarnaast ook nog Joachim Camerarius junior en de veel oudere Dioscorides als referenties voor de soortaanduiding "non-scriptus".
Dodoens geeft aan dat er in de klassieke literatuur twee soorten "Hyacinthus" te vinden zijn.[5] De soort die "scriptus" wordt genoemd vermeldt hij in de inleiding van zijn tweede boek.[6] Hier verhaalt hij van de jongeling Hyakinthos, uit wiens bloed de hyacint zou zijn ontsproten, en waarop de tranen van de om hem wenende Apollo de letters "ai ai" gevormd zouden hebben. De andere soort was kleiner, en kon (om aan te geven dat het een andere soort dan de eerste was) non-scriptus genoemd worden.[7]
De soort werd in 1803 door Johann Centurius von Hoffmannsegg en Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link in het geslacht Scilla geplaatst. De plaatsing in het geslacht Hyacinthoides, die nu veelal wordt gevolgd, gebeurde voor het eerst in 1934 door Pierre Chouard en werd in 1944 formeel gepubliceerd door Werner Hugo Paul Rothmaler.
‘Like Hyacinthus’. Hyacinthus is named for Hyakinthos a youth who was accidentally killed by Apollo. Where his blood fell, the plant sprang up.
non-scripta
There are markings on the wild hyacinth, Hyacinthus orientalis albulus, which look like the Greek for ‘Alas’ and Apollo is said to have put them their to show his grief over killing Hyakinthos. The Hyacinthoides is unmarked and, hence, ‘non-scripta’, ‘no writing’.
Common Names and Synonyms
bluebell, wild hyacinth. Also called Endymion non-scriptus and Scilla non-scripta
How Poisonous, How Harmful?
Contains glycosides called scillarens which are similar to the glycosides in foxgloves.
Like the snowdrop, the bulb can be mistaken for onions and eaten. Theoretically, it lowers the pulse rate and causes nausea, diarrhoea and vomiting and larger doses could cause cardiac arrhythmias, hypotension and electrolyte imbalance similar to the effects of digoxin in overdose.
Incidents
There are no case reports in the literature other than one case of suspected, but unproven, poisoning in cattle.
I heard from someone who, many years ago when a small boy, used to cook bluebell bulbs in the way chestnuts are roasted over a fire when he was out in the woods. He suffered no ill-effects from eating them nor did his friend. It is impossible to know whether the ingested dose was too small or whether the heating destroyed the toxins. Today, of course, such activity would be strongly discouraged for the sake of the wild plants.
Folklore and Facts
Non-scripta, these days, is generally said to mean unmarked but, as it suggests, its literal meaning is ‘no writing’. This results from the Greek myth that Apollo wrote on wild hyacinth, Hyacinthus orientalis albulus, ‘Alas’ to commemorate the death of Hyacinthos. The bluebell has no such markings.
The naming of hyacinths has changed so it is hard to be sure which hyacinth John Gerard means when he says it causes the heads of cattle to swell before killing them. He takes this one example to apply a malign and poisonous nature to all hyacinths.
Because of concern about Hyacinthoides non-scripta coming under pressure in the wild, the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act makes it a protected plant and the legislation was further enhanced in 1998 making it an offence to trade in wild Hyacinthoides non-scripta bulbs or seeds. The difficulty of proving that a Hyacinthoides non-scripta bulb is not from a wild source means that only the Spanish bluebell is sold by garden centres. It is said that the Hyacinthoides hispanica was first introduced to the UK in the 17th century so the measures taken in the late 20th century can’t be wholly to blame for the dominance of the Spanish bluebell in the commercial market.
The problem (for those who feel that native purity must be maintained) came when Spanish bluebells escaped into areas where the native had grown. Not only is the hispanica a more robust species than the non-scripta meaning it tends to drive out the ‘true’ bluebell, the two species freely hybridise. So, it is not a case of needing to be able to identify the two species; the many hybrids now found in the wild mean that it is only possible to separate bluebells into non-scripta and not. That is, if you can find it, you can recognise the pure Hyacinthoides non-scripta but if any sort of hybridisation has occurred it is much harder to give the resulting plant a full name.