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Flora Emslandia - Plants in Emsland (northwestern Germany)

Muscari, Grape hyacinths

Muscari L.: Muscari comosum (syn. Leopoldia comosa), the tassel hyacinth, is known since ancient times as Bolbos or Bulbus. The non-toxic bulb was and is still used in Italy for medicinal and food purposes. Charles de l‘Ecluse (1526–1609), also known as Clusius, first used the term Muscari for a plant that Matthiolus (1501–1577) described as Bulbus vomitorius. The plant he got from Antonio Cortusi (1513–1603), who had received it in Constantinople. An illustration can be found in Clusius' work Rariorum aliquot Stirpium per Pannoniam (1583) and probably shows Muscari macrocarpum.

From Constantinople probably comes also the name that should be derived from the Arabic "misk sahih" what means "real musk" and refers to the scent. Linnaeus used Clusius` name in Hyacinthus muscari (Species plantarum 1753), which we know today as Muscari racemosum. Linnaeus Hyacinthus racemosus in turn has become a synonym for Muscari neglectum. The English name "grape hyacinth" is an exact translation of Hyacinthus racemosus.

In 1754, one year after the publication of the plants that Linnaeus listed under Hyacinthus, Philip Miller established a valid description of the genus Muscari by following the modern rules of nomenclature by referring to a broader description that was already made in 1694 by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort.

Comprising some 50 species, the genus is originally native to temperate Europe, in North Africa and Southwest Asia. With some ornamental plants it has been spread over all continents and there it tends to naturalizing. The perennial herbs have egg-shaped bulbs, surrounded by a brown skin, which form in some species daughter bulbs. The 1–7 basal leaves are simple, entire, parallel-veined, flat or grooved and linear to filiform.

The leafless, slim, glabrous and round scape bears a terminal, multiflowered, dense raceme. The stalks are usually surrounded at the base by a small, membranous bract. The blue, pink, yellow or white flowers are often smell strongly. The upper flowers are small, frequently sterile and often have a somewhat different color than the lower ones. The 6 tepals are almost completely bell-shaped, urceolate or tubular, only at the apex, they are free and ends in a slightly recurved teeth. Above the mouth, the flowers are often slightly constricted.

The 6 small, dark blue stamens are united with the corolla tube. The superior ovary, consisting of 3 carpells, bears a stylus with a 3-lobed stigma. After pollination by bees and bumblebees the ovaries form membranous, slightly 3-edged, loculicidal capsules with 3–6 rounded, shiny, black seeds.

Floral formula:

* [P(3+3) A3+3] G(3) superior

Historical publications

Theophrastus (371–287 B.C.) wrote about the tassel hyacinth (Bolbos), it would grow like weeds in wheat fields. It would have a fleshy bulb wich was composed of scales and very narrow leaves. The bulbs tasted most bitterly at the top.

Pliny (about 23–79 AD.) reported on numerous healing effects of the Bulbi (the bulbs of the tassel hyacinth). The garden onions are called by Pliny Cepae and have also been used to cure diseases.

Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566) treated in his herbal book two Muscari species together with Scilla and called them "Mertzenblum" (March flower). On Greek and Latin they would be called Hyacinthi.

Meaning of the species names

• armeniacum: lat. armeniacus = Armenian
• botryoides: gr. bothryos = grapes

Interesting notes

• Some authors divide the genus in Muscari, Pseudomuscari and Leopoldia, but these are difficult to distinguish from each other.

• Muscari flowers are used in perfumeries because of their sweet scent.