60 FLORA HISTORfCA. 



This author enumerates by name forty-nine 

 kinds of Carnations that were cultivated in the 

 time of Charles the First, whose Queen was ex- 

 cessively fond of flowers ; but although it ap- 

 pears that varieties were then procured from 

 France and other parts of the continent, yet the 

 largest and principal kind of Carnation was then 

 distinguished by the name of The Old English 

 Carnation. 



During the civil commotions of the latter part 

 of the reign of Charles the First and of the Com- 

 monwealth, this flower seems to have been nearly 

 lost in England, as Mr. John Rea remarks, in 

 the Flora which he published in 1665, that we 

 had formerly many good kinds, but that few of 

 them were then to be found in any of our gar- 

 dens. The Dutch had then taken up the culti- 

 vation of the Carnation, and we renewed our 

 gardens with these flowers from Holland during 

 the reign of Charles the Second, as Rea observes, 

 " Of these Dutch flowers I have known more 

 than a hundred distinct varieties, by several 

 names, all of them fair, large, and double flowers." 

 He also remarks, that these plants were not so 

 hardy as those that had been formerly cultivated 

 in England. In a later edition of Mr. Rea's 

 Flora, three hundred and sixty good sorts of 

 Carnations are enumerated; and to show how 



