Scylla - also known as woods hyacinth.In Greek Mythology, Scylla was a sea nymph who was changed by Circe into a monster. Circe was jealous about some guy who was chasing poor Scylla, so Circe, enchantress that she was, mixed up some herbs and spells and poisoned a little bay , ". . .where Scylla used to resort in the heat of the day to bathe her limbs." When the lovely girl waded in waist deep, "she found herself surrounded by serpents and barking monsters. At first she could not imagine they were part of her, and tried to run away, but as she ran, she carried them with her, and when she tried to touch her limbs, her hands found only the yawning jaws of monsters. Scylla remained rooted to the spot. Her temper grew as ugly as her form, and she took pleasure in devouring hapless mariners who came within her grasp."
Or at last that's what it says in Bullfinch's Mythology. So if you ever try to steer between Scylla and Charybdis, you might want to bring some meat for the monsters.
I have no idea why these pretty flowers are named scylla -do you?
Saturday is going to be busy for me, so just in case I don't get back in time, here's a picture doing double duty for S and T. Snakes on a Treadmill.
My guess is because those seemingly innocent, pretty flowers are incredibly invasive. They look like sweet little sea nymphs, so you plant them in your garden, but they spread both by rapidly-multiplying bulb and by seed, so they soon take over. And you can carefully dig them out, but you can't get all the tiny little bulbs, so you have to keep digging and digging every year. They can also come up through literally feet of soil. They truly are monsters.
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