Griffinia hyacinthina (1834)
孤挺蓝属
Griffinia hyacinthina (1834)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- slightly upright 1.26 : 1
First Look
凡画山水，意在笔先。
—— 唐·王维《山水论》
In painting, the intention precedes the brush.
Slightly taller than wide; the eye lands above centre. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find the darkest small patch: the whole tonal order is measured from there.
Name and Thing
The binomial is Griffinia hyacinthina: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. Two words carry a whole provenance. The Chinese name 孤挺蓝属 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 3.2% of the sheet, foliage 4.5%, the cast amber with a second note of yellow-green. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Bulbous plants store the year underground — bulb, corm or tuber — then send up a few thick leaves and a single scape, with six tepals in cup, funnel or star.No colour group is recorded. Read the outline, then the colour layers, then the brush.
Composition
The sheet is slightly tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 9% of the sheet, centred below centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. Craft leaves franker evidence than inscriptions. If you mean to copy it: take its skeleton, its margins and the order of its colours; the burin's hatching is the language of copper — suggest it with pencil density, do not imitate it stroke for stroke.
Poetic Resonance
满园花菊郁金黄，中有孤丛色似霜。
—— 唐·白居易《重陽席上賦白菊》
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the corolla becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
The tulip was an imperial emblem in Istanbul and a speculative bubble in Amsterdam; the hyacinth sprang from a boy's blood in Greek myth. What bulbs share is concealment: next year kept underground. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.
Season and Place
Early spring to early summer, genus by genus: tulips and hyacinths first, gladiolus and amaryllis later. Three homelands: the Mediterranean, Central Asia and South Africa. The tulip came from Ottoman gardens and became a Dutch mania. The year 1834 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. Read the locality and the flowering season both with a discount: one is hearsay, the other a ten-day peak.
The Book and the Hand
“A selection of hexandrian plants, belonging to the natural orders Amaryllidae and Liliacæ” carries only Priscilla Susan Bury's name. A plate is collective work: drawer, engraver and colourist were different hands, and the unnamed ones decided how good it looks.
What to Take Away
Appreciation is not knowledge but habit — one more look each time. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1834 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
Griffinia hyacinthina (1834) is plate 14, from A selection of hexandrian plants, belonging to the natural orders Amaryllidae and Liliacæ, drawn by Priscilla Susan Bury. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: London, R. Havell, 1834.
![1. Zephyranthes carinatus. 2. Zephyranthes rosea. [Zaphyr lily, Fairy lily, Rain lily] (1834)](/upload/nat/a-selection-of-hexandrian-plants-belonging-to-the-natural-orders-amaryllidae-and-liliacae-2/013-thumb.webp)
![Crinium Augustum. [Queen Emma] (1834)](/upload/nat/a-selection-of-hexandrian-plants-belonging-to-the-natural-orders-amaryllidae-and-liliacae-2/004-thumb.webp)
