56 POPULAR GARDEN FLOWERS 



Parkinson, and other old florists doing in the spacious 

 Elizabethan epoch. These men were as eminent in 

 floriculture as their contemporaries Spenser, Marlowe, 

 and Shakespeare were in literature. But what different 

 lives they led John Gerard pursuing the peaceful art of 

 gardening at Burghley and compiling his Herball in 

 placid seclusion (cribbing freely from Dodoens' Pemp- 

 tadesj however, according to some unkind biographers), 

 Kit Marlowe carousing in the taverns, and getting killed 

 in a vulgar brawl ! 



The Carnation presently began to develop on certain 

 well-defined lines. The "streaked Gillyvors" became 

 the "Bizarres" and " Flakes" of modern florists. The 

 different character of the markings led to the flowers 

 being separated into classes. When we open a Carna- 

 tion catalogue to-day we find such sections as Bizarres, 

 Flakes, Selfs, Malmaisons, Trees (or Perpetuals), Ameri- 

 cans, and Fancies ; and all of these are subdivided by 

 colour. Among Picotees we have Yellow Grounds and 

 White Grounds, with sub-divisions according to the 

 breadth of the marking on the edge of the petals and 

 the colour. 



When the old florists had secured their sections they 

 kept them distinct and good by formulating rules and 

 standards. They fixed on an ideal flower, and worked 

 up to it with their new seedlings, retaining only those 

 that conformed to the standard, and keeping them true 

 to form and colour by propagating from layers and 

 cuttings. They gave us a round, smooth-edged flower, 

 full in the centre, and with the petals overlapping each 

 other evenly. They did their work so well that we have 

 not been able to make improvements in form during the 

 past 150 years (some of the old school declare mourn- 

 fully that we are receding, since we have admitted the 



