THE YELLOW PICOTEE 9 
last century. He crossed these yellow varieties with the 
white-ground Picotees, and obtained some varieties of the 
true florist’s form of colouring and marking. My late 
friend, Mr. B. Simonite of Sheffield, saw them exhibited 
before the National Carnation and Picotee Society in 1858, 
and thought them of the highest class in form and mark- 
ings. The yellow tint of the petals was paler than heretofore, 
owing to the cross with the white varieties, Smith began 
crossing in 1847, and it was ten years before he was able to 
show these perfectly formed flowers ; they did not become 
widely distributed. A variety named Prince of Orange 
was introduced in the early sixties—a clear yellow flower, 
with a well-defined red margin. From this variety a 
batch of seedlings was raised in the nurseries of Mr. 
Charles Turner of Slough, some of them exhibiting a con- 
siderable improvement on the parent plant. From these 
seedlings I was successful in obtaining a further advance. 
Other raisers have since taken the matter in hand, and 
the yellow Picotee is now perfect in form and markings. 
Amongst the later Carnation growers, one name stands 
pre-eminent as a raiser, the late Mr. Martin Ridley Smith. 
When he started with the intention of improving the Car- 
nation, he spared no pains or expense to obtain the best 
varieties. He asked me to go with him to Erfurt in 
Germany, and we spent a day in carefully examining all 
the choicest varieties grown in the nursery of Mr, Ernest 
Benary at Erfurt, and the fancy varieties we selected on 
that occasion were the parents of the fine varieties raised 
by Mr. Smith. There were two very good selfs amongst 
them, a pure-white flower of excellent form, and the perfect 
yellow self named Germania. This latter variety was the 
parent of many beautiful selfs of quite different colours. 
