52 POPULAR GARDEN FLOWERS 



these garland flowers. Our flower being a popular one 

 for head wreaths, it was called the coronation flower, and 

 coronation became Carnation. 



The old writers called several plants Gillyflowers (this 

 name was sometimes spelled Gilliflower or Gilloflower), 

 amongst them being the Stock and the Wallflower ; but 

 when they wrote of the two latter as Gillyflowers it was 

 with the prefixes " Stock" and "Wall." When they re- 

 ferred to Gillyflowers without any such distinctions it 

 may be assumed that they referred to Carnations. It is 

 true that Shakespeare alluded to them in such a way as 

 to lead to the supposition that they were different plants. 

 Note 



" The fairest flowers o' the season 

 Are our Carnations and streaked Gillyvors, 

 Which some call Nature's bastards." 



Winters Tale. 



But it is probably safe to assume that the " streaked 

 Gillyvor" (Gillyflower) was merely another sort of 

 Carnation. 



We may carry the interest of derivations a little 

 farther. The botanist's name for the Carnation is Dian- 

 thus caryophyllus. Dianthus comes from dios, divine, and 

 anthos, a flower Jove's flower. Caryophyllus means nut- 

 leaved (see Corylus, the Nut ; Carya, the Hickory ; Cary- 

 ocar, the Butter Nut, &c., all deriving from the Greek 

 karyon, a nut). As the Carnation has grassy leaves, dif- 

 fering entirely from those of the Nuts, the specific name 

 caryophyllus seems at first inappropriate and difficult 

 to explain, but it was first applied generically to the 

 Indian Clove tree, Caryophyllus aromaticus, and the name 

 became attached to the Carnation through the latter 

 having a smell of Cloves. Having got so far, the rest is 

 easy, because Gillyflower is certainly a corruption of 



