THE CARNATION 203 



to describe the flower because of its colour, and that it came to 

 be called a "coronation" because lovers used it as a crown when 

 they became engaged to marry. These conflicting views illustrate 

 the difficulty of offering an explanation that is equally satisfactory 

 to all, but one thing is clear through everything, and that is the 

 clove association. It lingers in the botanical name of the Car- 

 nation, which is Dianthus caryophyllus. The word Dianthus means 

 "flower of the gods." 



The fact that the Carnation was known to the ancient Greeks 

 and Romans proves it to be a very old plant. Pliny places its 

 earliest habitat in Spain, where he states that it was found in the 

 days of Augustus Caesar. He tells us that the Spaniards used it 

 as a spice. As we have seen, the old English used it in the 

 same way ; hence the name " soppes-in-wine." It is difficult to 

 say when the plant first appeared in Britain. The original plant 

 was flesh-coloured, and according to Gerarde yellow varieties were 

 not introduced until 1580. If that were so they developed very 

 fast, for we find Shakespeare writing of "streaked gilivors" in 

 1601, and read of Parkinson growing a "complete collection" some 

 thirty years later. But they were not classified into the sections 

 under which we have them, such as Bizarres, Flakes, Selfs, and 

 Picotees, until later days. This was probably done in the eighteenth 

 century, towards the end of which Flakes and Bizarres were grown 

 to as high a state of perfection, according to one famous modern 

 florist, as they are at the present time. In support of his conten- 

 tion, he refers his readers to Plate 39 of the Botanical Magazine, 

 where a splendid example of a florist's Carnation is shown. The 

 yellow ground Picotee appeared in the seventeenth century. 



In modern days the greatest development among Carnations 

 has been in the Selfs and Fancies. The former are one-coloured 

 flowers ; the latter are yellow or white flowers, suffused and other- 

 wise irregularly marked with another colour. They are beautiful 

 classes, both for garden and pot culture, and the same remark 



