DESCRIPTIVE LIST OP FLOWERS. 317 



tober, and there is no flower like this and its hybrids for 

 massing ; this is the only good quality about it. The odor 

 is unpleasant, and it is not fit for bouquets. 



P. nyctaginiflora. Has large white flowers, coarser in 

 its growth than the last, and is of the same spreading 

 habit. Both are somewhat viscid in their stems and foli- 

 age. From these two species have been produced innu- 

 merable varieties, with colors much more brilliant. Among 

 the improved sorts are the Countess of Ellesmere, rosy- 

 carmine with white throat, a very profuse bloomer; 

 Large-flowered, dark-red; Large-flowered, purple with 

 green edge ; Inimitable, red margined and blotched with 

 pure white. Hybrida picturata, a most beautiful dwarf 

 variety, not exceeding one foot, covered with large flow- 

 ers of fine form and great substance, of a velvety scarlet- 

 crimson, beautifully marbled with white. Carnation 

 striped, a very beautiful class with flowers with white, 

 rosy or lilac ground, with crimson, scarlet and purple 

 stripes ; veined on the same grounds with the same bright 

 colors. P. kermesina splendens, pure white with purple 

 or crimson throat, or blotched with purple or violet. P. 

 maxima alba, very large white, and almost every conceiv- 

 able combination of colors, excepting yellow and blue. 

 But the greatest novelties are the double varieties, in- 

 troduced within a few years, which partake of the same 

 disposition to sport into a great variety of colors as do 

 the single varieties ; but I do not esteem them as any im- 

 provement. They are queer mis-shapen monsters, curi- 

 osities to be sure, but they are more shy in flowering, 

 more liable to injury by rain, and fail to make that grand 

 display which the single varieties do. 



The single sorts are easily raised from seed sown in hot- 

 beds in May ; they may afterwards be pricked out into 

 small pots, and, when sufficiently strong, turned into the 

 open ground in the beginning of June. If the seed is 



