DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARNATION 23 



similar to our ideal of today — high in the center, spreading 

 and rounded. In 1702 Ray named 360 good sorts of Car- 

 nations; and Hogg, in his treatise on the Carnation in 

 1820, gives a catalogue of about the same number. 



THE AMERICAN STRAIN 



The type called Tree Carnation had been in cultivation 

 for fully a hundred years, and was grown as a pot plant for 

 flowering in greenhouses both in Europe and America until 

 the American strain began to edge it off the stage. The 

 challenge of the new race, the race or strain to which this 

 book is almost entirely devoted, was first registered in the 

 year 1842.* The American Carnation came out of France. 

 Ic was derived from the former French Remontant (liter- 

 ally, remounting or everflowering), out of which a grower 

 named Dalmais, of Lyons, France, raised the first perpetual 

 blooming variety. The immediate progenitor of Dalmais's 

 variety was one called Carnation de Mahon, which flowered 

 in November, fertilized with pollen from one called Biohon, 

 the offspring being again crossed with a Flemish type of 

 Carnation, and recrossed and selected until a distinct 

 strain was obtained. The first of the name varieties was 

 named Atim. In a period of two or three years he raised 

 many improved varieties, but they were, in the mam, tall 

 growing, like the old Tree Carnations, and straggly. 



Monsieur Dalmais's work was continued by two other 

 growers of the same town, namely, M. Schmidt, on whose 

 heels followed M. Alphonse Alegatiere, who each assisted 

 in the improvement of the earlier type, the latter most 

 notably. Two of his varieties, Edwardsii and La Purite, 

 were grown for many years in the United States. 



*See "Amerif-an Florist," fourteenth number, 1SS6. 



