D I A 



OR. BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



D I A 



44; 



Gray, red, and blue hulo ; grimelo, or prince ; white, or 

 delicate ; French ; grand, or great Harwich, or old English ; 

 din stall or chrystalline ; red chrystall; fragrant; striped 

 i.ivudge ; blush 'and red savadge ; Oxford ; king's or ordi- 

 nary Bristow ; greatest Granado ; grand pere ; cambersine ; 

 great Lombard red. Gillyflowers. Lusty gallant, or West- 

 minster; Bristol blue; Bristol blush; red Dover; light, or 

 white Dover ; fair maid of Kent, or ruffling Robin ; queen's 

 dainty; Brazil; Granado; Turkey; Poole : light or pale 

 pageant ; sad pageant ; Bradshaw's dainty lady ; best white ; 

 London white ; Stamell ; purple; gredeline ; blue; blush; 

 John Wittie his great tawny ; divers other tawnies; many 

 sorts of blushes ; some varieties of reds ; striped tawny ; 

 marbled tawny; Master Tuggie's princess ; flaked, feathered, 

 and speckled tawny ; Master Tuggie his Rose Gilliflower. 

 This Master Tuggie appears to have been the most famous 

 man of his lime for the cultivation of those fine flowers ; 

 and Johnson, referring to the work of his friend Parkinson, 

 ^ixs, " if they require any further satisfaction, let them, at 

 the time of the year, repairtothe garden of Mistress Tuggie, 

 the wife of my lately deceased friend Mr. Ralph Tuggie, in 

 Westminster, which, in the excellency and variety of these 

 delights, exceedeth all that 1 have ever seen." Modern 

 florists distinguish the Carnation into four classes. First, 

 flakes, of two colours only, and their stripes large, going 

 quite through the leaves. Second, bizarrs, with flowers 

 striped or variegated with three or four different colours, in 

 irregular spots and stripes. Third, pirjuettes or piquette"es, 

 having a white ground, and spotted or pounced with scarlet, 

 red, purple, or other colours. Fourth, painted ladies, which 

 have the petals of a red or purple colour on the upper side, 

 and are white underneath. Of each class there are nume- 

 rous varieties, but chiefly of the third, which some years 

 ago was in most esteem with the florists ; but of late years 

 the flakes have been in greater request. To enumerate the 

 varieties would be useless, as they are not permanent, and 

 every country produces new flowers almost every year, 

 which, though at first raising they may be greatly valued, 

 in two or three years become so common as to be of little 

 worth, especially if they prove defective in any one pro- 

 perty ; and are turned out to make room for new comers. 

 For the variety of pompous names, we refer, therefore, to 

 the lists published yearly by florists and nurserymen, who 

 either raise these flowers from seeds, or import them from 

 abroad. The following are what the florists call the good 

 properties of a Carnation : 1. The stem of the flower should 

 be strong, and able to support the weight of the flower 

 without hanging down; 2. the petals should be long, broad, 

 and stiff, and pretty easy to expand, or, as the florists term 

 it, should make free flowers ; 3. the middle of the flower 

 should not advance too high above the other parts ; 4. the 

 colours should be bright, and equally marked s*\l over the 

 flower ; 5. the flower should be very full of petals, so as to 

 render it, when blown, very thick in the middle, and the 

 outside perfectly round. To this we may add, that the 

 stem should not only be strong, but straight, and not less 

 than thirty, or more than forty-five inches high. The 

 flower should be at least three inches in diameter, and the 

 petals well formed, neither so many as to appear crowded, 

 nor so few as to appear thin. The lower or outer circle of 

 petals, commonly called the guard-leaves, should be parti- 

 cularly substantial, rise perpendicularly about half an inch 

 above the calix, and then turn off gracefully in a horizontal 

 direction, supporting the interior petals, which should de- 

 crease gradually in size as they approach the c-cntre, which 

 should be well filled with them ; all the petals ought to be 



regularly disposed, and lie over each other in such a manner 

 as their respective and united beauties may meet the eye 

 all together ; they should be nearly flat, or at most have a 

 small degree of inflection at the broad end ; their edges 

 should be perfectly entire, without notch, fringe, or inden- 

 ture : the calix should at least be an inch in length, and suf- 

 ficiently strong at top to keep the bases of the petals in a 

 close and circular body : the colours ought to be distinct, 

 and the stripes regular, narrowing gradually to the claw of 

 the petal, and there ending in a fine point : almost one half 

 of each petal should be of a clear white, free from spots. 

 Pinks do not seem to have been much noticed by our ances- 

 tors ; and it is only within the present century, and parti- 

 larly of late years, that they have been so much improved 

 and varied as to be highly valued by the florists ; the princi- 

 pal varieties are the damask, white shock, pheasant's eye, 

 common red, Cob's, Dobson's, white Cob, and Bat's. The 

 old man's head, and painted lady Pinks, rather belong to the 

 Carnation. The damask Pink is the first of the double sorts 

 in flower ; it has but a short stalk, and the flower is not very 

 large, nor so double as many others; the colour is of a pale 

 purple, inclining to red, but the scent is very sweet. The 

 next which flowers is the white shock, which was so called 

 from the whiteness of its flowers, and the borders of the 

 petals being much jagged and fringed; but the scent of it is 

 not so agreeable as of some others. After this appear all the 

 varieties of pheasant's eye, of which new varieties are fre- 

 quently raised, which are either titled from the persons who 

 raised them, or the place where they were raised ; some of 

 these have very large double flowers, but those which burst 

 their pods are not so generally esteemed. The Cob Pink 

 comes out next, the stalks of which are much taller than any 

 of the former ; the flowers are very double, and of a bright 

 red colour, and as it has the most agreeable scent of all the 

 sorts, it well deserves a place in every good garden. The 

 old man's head, and the painted lady, do not flower till July, 

 coming out at the same season with the Carnation, to which 

 they are more nearly allied than to the Pink : the first, when 

 it is in its proper colours, is purple and white, striped and 

 spotted, but this frequently is of one plain colour, which is pur- 

 ple, and will continue flowering till stopped by the autumnal 

 frost : it has an agreeable scent, for which it is esteemed ; 

 while the painted lady is chiefly admired for the liveliness of 

 its colour, being neither so sweet nor of so long continuance 

 as the other. The times of flowering for the Pinks is from 

 the latter end of May till the middle of July ; and that sort of 

 Pink which is called Bats will frequently flower again in 

 autumn. Propagation and Culture of Carnations. Having 

 obtained some good seeds, prepare a proportionable number 

 of pots or boxes, filled with fresh earth mixed with rotten 

 cow-dung, incorporated well together :then sowtheseeds,but 

 not too thickly, in them, covering them with about a quarter 

 of an inch of the same kind of light earth, placing the pots 

 or boxes so as to receive the morning sun till eleven o'clock, 

 observing also to refresh the earth with water as often as it 

 may require. In about a month's time the plants will come 

 up, and, if kept clear from weeds, and duly watered, will be 

 fit for transplanting about the end of July; at which time 

 prepare some beds of the same sort of earth as they were 

 sown in, in anopen airy situation, in which plant them about 

 three inches square, observing to waterand shade them until 

 they have taken new root,takingcare to keep themclearfrom 

 weeds ; in these beds they may remain till the end of August, 

 by which time they will have grown so large, as almost to 

 meet each other; then prepare some more beds of the like 

 good earth, in quantity proportionable to the flowers you 



