1 8 DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARNATION 



the old English hardy Border varieties. Italy, France, 

 Spain, Holland and Germany have each also paid marked 

 attention to the American strain of the Carnation. There 

 is in France the biennial Grenadin type, which is largely 

 treated as an annual, and which throws both single and 

 double flowers. The Marguerite (or Margaret) kinds are 

 also popular in European countries, France particularly, 

 because they yield armfuls of good flowers, even from 

 sowings made the same year. The " Riviera " Carna- 

 tions are closely allied to these. As for the large Mal- 

 maison Carnations, these, too, originated in France — one 

 authority* says in 1857 — but they were very early culti- 

 vated in Scotland, where some fine varieties were raised. 

 After this brief statement of facts we come down 

 closer to details, although nothing like an exhaustive 

 history of Carnations is here attempted. Going back to 

 1629, at which date John Parkinson's floricultural book, 

 " Paradisus Terrestris," was published, he, as one of the 

 earliest authoritative writers, furnishes a very satisfactory 

 account of our flower in those days. Half a centur\' 

 earlier than that, Thomas Hill described its cultivation in 

 the " Proffitable Arte of Gardening," and Gerarde in 1597 

 had shown that here was a flower that the old monks in 

 their monastic gardens, and other lovers of flowers, had 

 already taken considerable care of. We will quote Par- 

 kinson's own words: 



Cari/ophyUns hnrtensis. Carnations and CiUoJlowrs. 



To avoid confusion I must divide Gilloflowers from Pinkes and intreate of them in 

 several Chapters, of those that are called Carnations or Gilloflowers as of the greater 

 kinds in this Chapter; and of the Pinkes as well double as single, in the next. But 

 the number is so great that to give severall descriptions to them all were endlesse, at 

 the least needlesse. I will therefore set downe onely the descriptions of three (for unto 

 these three may be referred all the other sorts) for their fashion and manner of growing, 

 and give you the severall names of the rest, with their variety and mixture of colours in 



R. P. Brotherston in " The Book of the Carnation," p. 35. 



