COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



floral kingdom would astonish the curious searcher into 

 such matters. 



The word Gillyflower, one of the softest and prettiest of 

 all flower names, plunges us into a most pleasurable 

 confusion. It seems to have been a sort of pet name given 

 to many greatly admired flowers having no attributes in 

 common save a delightful fragrance. The Clove Carnation 

 was, I believe, preeminently the Gillyflower, though the 

 Wallflower and the Stock, and numerous others, shared 

 with it the distinction of the pretty name. The Carnation's 

 claim lies in the assumption that from the Latin Caryo- 

 phyllum, a clove, grew the Italian garofalo, the French 

 giroflee, and finally by way of the capricious spelling com-' 

 mon to those days, the English Gillofer or Gillyflower. 



July-flower was another corruption of Gillyflower. Dray- 

 ton wrote of the "curious, choice Clove July-flower," probably 

 meaning the Carnation; and Wallflowers also came to be 

 known as July-flowers. 



Old Gervaise Markham in "The Country Housewife's 

 Garden" (1626) speaks of "July-flowers (I call them so 

 because they flower in July), they have the name of cloves 

 of their scent." These must have been Carnations, but he 

 also notes "July-flowers of the wall, or Bee-flowers, or winter 

 July-flowers, because growing in the walls even in Winter, 

 and good for Bees." 



The name Carnation comes from coronation because of 

 the constant use of this flower in garlands and wreaths. In 

 France the Pink is Oeillet — Petite Oeillet, or Oeillet de Poete, 

 but the fragrant flowers sold to-day in the Paris markets as 

 Girofle are Wallflowers, "Gold blossoms f recked with iron 



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