50 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



its cultivated state, for we have no mention of it by any of the Roman poets. It has, 

 however, been cultivated from time immemorial in Europe, and is now in as great 

 favour as ever for its beauty and rich spicy odour. In Germany and Italy it is the j)rin- 

 cipal florist's flower, and from these countries the British florists procure their most 

 esteemed varieties. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there were four hundred 

 varieties in cultivation, and we scarcely think they have diminished. They are arranged 

 in three classes : — Flakes, Bizarres, and Ficotees. Flakes have two colours only, and 

 their stripes large, quite through the petals of the flower. Bizarres are regularly spotted 

 or striped with not less than three colours. Ficotees have a white ground edged or 

 pounced with scarlet, red, purple, or other colours. We all know the labour and expense 

 that is bestowed in order to obtain a perfect double Carnation ; and we know of scarcely 

 any flower that by its delicious perfume as well as its own beauty so well rewards the 

 care of the cultivator. The flowers of this species of Dianthus were formerly employed 

 in medicine. The old physicians considered them cordial, and administered the infusion 

 in pestilential fevers and nervous complaints; but though somewhat aromatic, the flowers 

 possess no great medical virtues, and have long been discarded by our practitioners as 

 a remedy, though still used as a colouring material, and retained as such until now in 

 the Dublin Pharmacopoeia. What the revolutions of the new British Fharmacopoeia 

 may be as to many of these old ingredients in pharmacy we cannot at present say. 

 Old Gerarde, with a wisdom superior to his age, says : " These are not used in physicke, 

 but esteemed for their use in garlands and nosegaies. They are good to be put into 

 vinegar, to give it a pleasant taste and gallant colour." 



SPECIES v.— DIANTHUS PLUMARIUS. Linn. 



Plate CXCV. 

 Eekh. Ic. FL Germ, et Helv. VoL IV. CaryopJu Tab. CCLVII. Fig. 5030. 



Kootstock perennial, branched, woody, producing barren shoots 

 and ascending flowei'ing stems. Leaves of the bai-ren shoots and 

 base of the stem elongate-linear, those of the flowering ones shorter ; 

 all acute, 1-nerved, with scabrous margins. Flowers solitary, in a lax 

 irregular paniculate cyme. Calyx glabrous, obsoletely ribbed at the 

 base, distinctly so at the apex, with 4 involucral bracts, which are 

 rhomboidal-roundish, abruptly acuminated into a very short cuspi- 

 date point, which readies about one-third the distance to the apex 

 of the oblong-triangular blunt calyx teeth. Petals with the laminae 

 inversely-deltoid, obovate, rounded and fimbriated at the apex, 

 scarcely contiguous. 



On old walls. Not native, but naturalized in a good many 

 places : — at Shalford, Surrey ; East Ilam, Essex ; liaughmond 

 Abbey, Shropshire ; Conway Castle, "Wales. 



England. Perennial. Summer. 



Very likeD. caryophyllus, but usually smaller, seldom exceeding 

 1 foot iu height, with tlie leaves narrower, less recurved, and havuig 



