HISTORY OF THE CARNATION 3 
Parkinson in 1629 writes about the Carnation as being 
one of the greatest of garden favourites ; the varieties being 
so numerous “that descriptions to them all were endless.” 
All through the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth 
centuries, the Carnation in its delightful and varied forms 
was the theme of all the writers on gardens and gardening ; 
it was the favourite flower of the amateur and gardener. 
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Carnation 
was grown as a hardy garden flower, and the numerous 
varieties alluded to by Parkinson, owing doubtless to 
careless cultivation or improper management, had ceased 
to exist when Rea’s Flora or Complete Florilege appeared 
in 1665. By 1676, when the second edition was published, 
hundreds of varieties had been imported from “ Holland, 
Flanders and other parts of the Netherlands.” John Rea 
certainly gave the subject of the “July flowers” very care- 
ful attention. He says: “As the Tulip is the glory of the 
spring, so is the July flower the pride of summer.” It 
may be interesting to Carnation growers if a record is 
given of Rea’s experience in London. The Carnations 
brought from Holland in immense numbers were sold 
“at mean rates to gardeners, who sell them again to 
others that delight in flowers, commonly at twelve pence 
a layer; but the truth is, most of these mercenary fellows 
about London are very deceitful, and whoever trusts them 
is sure to be deceived, as I myself have often been, even 
by such of them as I had by many benefits obliged.” 
Rea obtained but poor success in the raising of seed- 
lings, although he saved his seeds from. very good flowers. 
In his Flora he states: “I prepared the earth wherein | 
intended to sow them, with several composts, and, during 
