BREVITIES. 153 



The greatest draft on the life forces of carnation plants is at 

 their blooming period. They are then crystallizing precious protein 

 compounds in their seeds, as food for embryonic plants. It is 

 then they need nourishing and easily assimilated plant food. 



The petals of a carnation flower may be shaded, flaked, 

 penciled, or dotted. They may have plain borders or be notched, 

 serrated or fringed. These forms and conditions are differentia- 

 tions of the ancestral types, modified by hereditary influence. 



The first flowers of some seedlings have unruptured and per- 

 fect calyxes; after that they may uniformly burst. This peculiarity 

 extends to the first, second and third generations of the life of the 

 same variety. The structural indices of a non-bursting carna- 

 tion flower lie in the length of the claws which lift the petals 

 out of the calyx before they broaden and mature. 



There is a renewed effort to grow American carnations in the 

 foggy climate of old England. The following carnations of 

 American origin are now offered by English growers; G. H. Crane, 

 Maud Adams, Melba, Flora Hill, Triumph, Bridesmaid, Day- 

 break, Victor, Mrs. McGowen, Bon Ton, Evelina, Lily Dean, 

 Mayor Pingree, Mrs. James Dean, Painted Lady, Empress, Mrs. 

 Geo. M. Bradt and White Cloud. The favorites so far appear to 

 be Flora Hill and White Cloud. 



It would be anomalous for a broad petal to be transposed 

 from the leaf of a La Puritie carnation one-sixteenth of an inch 

 wide; but not strange, as has been noticed, for petals one-and-a- 

 half inches wide to be the antitype of leaves on the same plant 

 one-half inch across, and the law of proportion carried out in the 

 size of the plant and its corolla. There never will be four-inch 

 carnation flowers on Alegatiere's La Puritie species until nature 

 plays a vaudeville with species and the law of proportion. 



