142 AMERICAN CARNATION CULTURE. 



two-thirds their natural size. The critical observer will notice the 

 long quill-like calyxes and the necessarily long claws of the petals, 

 lifting them well out of the cup before they broaden to burst the 

 caylx. This cut represents, as no description can, the early true 

 type of "Dianthus Semperflorens." 



On the opposite page is a cut of "Sea Gull," (Furnished by 

 the courtesy of B. G. Hill) and is the exact size of this phenom- 

 enal product. It won the Silver Flagon prize over McGowen at 

 the Madison Square Exhibition in New York in the fall of 1891. 

 It became posessed by some occult devil and was never generally 

 disseminated, yet it was the herald of a "New Species," a 

 spectacular prophecy of the genus "Dianthus Superba," which is 

 now history. 



