History. 5 
to have been the most successful florist. Three 
years later we find that the widowed Mistress 
Tuggy carried on the business. 
The recorded names would also indicate that the 
blue Carnation was not merely a desideratum in 
those days, but a reality, as the word blew is 
attached to several varieties of Carnation and 
Gilloflower. The descriptions, however, dispel the 
illusion, for these flowers were merely purple, or light 
purple, tending to blue. Many of these speckled 
flowers were inconstant and reverted to purple, 
blush or other self-colour. The favourite varieties 
of Gilloflower were also striped, spotted or 
powdered like the Carnation, the white ground 
sometimes being the dominant hue and at other 
times the dark colours predominated. 
All of the varieties were feathered, jagged or 
toothed at the edges of the petals with one excep- 
tion, namely, “ Master Tuggie his Rose Gilloflower,” 
which was a self rose-coloured flower, without mark- 
ings- and with perfectly smooth or entire petals. 
Master Tuggy was the only one who possessed it, 
having raised it from the strain known as Tawnies. 
This unique combination marked a great advarce in 
the Carnation, but though Parkinson emphasised 
the difference between it and other Carnations, he 
displayed no enthusiasm with regard to these 
characteristics which florists of the nineteenth 
century carried to such perfection and regarded as 
indispensable to an exhibition or florist’s flower. 
The native home of these flowers was unknown 
with the exception of the Pool flower which grew 
upon rocks near Cogshot Castle in the Isle of Wight, 
and the yellow Carnation which came from Silesia. 
All the rest were nursed in gardens and many of 
them were difficult to preserve or increase. 
The “yellow or Orenge Tawny Gilloflower” had 
flowers similar in size to those of the Clove 
Gilloflower, and of a “pale yellowish Carnation 
colour, tending to an Orenge.” Unlike many of the 
others it produced seeds abundantly and gave rise 
to a numerous progeny of self or speckled, spotted 
and striped, single and double flowers. 
It is evident that the Carnation has now been 
cultivated in this country for considerably over 300 
years, and that the production of the florist were 
already very numerous in Gerard and Parkinson’s 
time. Shakespeare’s “ Winter’s Tale” was written 
