Wild bluebells are in flower from late April right through until the end of May, and being a perennial and spreading rapidly, is found year after year in the same spot, forming a mass of rich colour in the woods where it grows.
Linneaus first called it Hyacinthus, traditionally associating the flower with with the Hyacinth of the Ancients, the flower of grief and mourning. Hyacinthus was a charming youth who both Apollo and Zephyrus loved, but preferred the Sun God to the God of the West Wind , who sought to be revenged, and one day when Apollo was playing quoits with the youth, a quoit ( blown by Zephyrus out of its proper course) killed Hyacinthus. Apollo stricken with grief, raised from his blood a purple flower on which the letters Ai,Ai were traced so his cry of woe might forevermore exist upon the earth.