2 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 
something to do with it. The wits of men had directed the 
natural capacity for variation into the right channels, and, 
in a measure only, made it responsive to their desires. 
Chaucer died just 150 years before the publication of 
Turner’s Herbal, and the “Cloue Gelofre” alluded to by 
him may have been the Carnation, although some believe it 
to be the clove tree. As affording some evidence of the 
popularity of the flower in the fifteenth century, it may be 
mentioned that King Edward IV. was a young man in 1463 
and in a painting of this monarch he was depicted with a 
Carnation bloom in his hand. I have a note of this picture 
being sold at Christie’s from the Bernal collection in 1855. 
Lot 936 in that sale is described as “an undoubted and 
rare portrait of Edward IV. in a gold dress, and crimson 
cloak edged with fur, a chain of jewels round his neck; he 
wears a black cap, and holds a red Carnation in his hand” 
(it was stated to be a Rose in error). The picture was 
bought by the Duke of Newcastle for 150 guineas. There 
is an excellent engraving of the picture as a frontispiece to 
the catalogue. 
The Carnation must have been a favourite flower in the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth. Gerard’s Herbal was published 
in 1597, and the Carnation was widely distributed at that 
time. Shakespeare was contemporary with Gerard. The 
Winter's Tale was published in 1623, and in the well- 
known conversation between Polixenes and Perdita, we 
obtain more knowledge of the Carnation than in any 
previous Herbal. The time of flowering: “The year 
growing ancient. Not yet on summer’s death, nor on the 
birth of trembling winter.” ‘The fairest flowers of the 
season are our Carnations, and streaked Gillyvors.” 
