Yellow Carnations and Picotees. 63 
VII—YELLOW CARNATIONS AND 
PICOTEES: 
How or when yellow as a colour first originated in 
the Carnation, is now lost in obscurity. All that 
seems to be known is that John Gerard in 1597 
recorded that Mr. Nicolas Lete, a worshipful 
merchant of London, procured a “Gillofloure with 
yellow fioures ” from Poland, and gave him some for 
his own garden, as previously mentioned in the 
chapter on “ History.” A yellow Carnation in the 
wild state is unknown. Wherever the first yellow 
variety may have originated, it is certain that it 
spread over a great part of Europe, and in Parkin- 
son’s time had given rise to many varieties, single 
and double. The yellow race would appear to have 
been cultivated in this country from the time of 
Gerard till in the early part of the nineteenth 
century it had attained considerable notoriety, 
particularly among the gentry or nobility of the 
land, whose collections were frequently replenished 
by fresh importations, brought by travellers from 
the Continent. There was no difficulty in raising 
and flowering the plants from seed, but they rapidly 
dwindled and disappeared when attempts were made 
to perpetuate varieties by layering. 
Evolution of the Yellow-Ground Picotee. 
In 1819 Thomas Hogg, of Paddington, applied 
the name Picotee to the striped and spotted yellow 
ground Carnations and published a coloured plate 
(reproduced on p. 9). In concluding his chapter 
on the management of the Yellow Picotee, he 
lamented his lack of success in the following brief 
statement:—‘“I confess I am at a loss to say what 
compost is proper to grow it in, and yet, after all, 
the fault perhaps does not rest with the soil, but the 
climate, which, take it the year round, is too harsh 
and moist for this delicate exotic.” His coloured 
illustration represents a flower striped and lined 
with various colours, though the yellow ground was 
rich yellow. The edges of the petals were rather 
deeply fringed or fimbriated. 
Dr. Horner, another noted florist, writing in the 
Midland Florist in 1848, addressed a strong appeal 
