Caryophyllee-—Dianthus. 63 
etc. It is a native of the Mediterranean region, but it has be- 
come naturalized in many localities farther north. According 
to some authors, the Carnation was cultivated in very ancient 
times by the Mussulmans of Africa, who used it to perfume 
their liqueurs, and was brought from Tunis during the latter 
half of the thirteenth century, upon the termination of the 
disastrous expedition undertaken by St. Louis against that 
town. But there is nothing to prove that it is any more in- 
digenous in Barbary than it is on the northern shores of the 
Mediterranean. Moreover, the history of this plant is neither 
more nor less obscure than that of many other cultivated plants 
of early introduction. Under cultivation the normally single 
flower has become semi-double or double in all degrees, and, in 
place of the uniform lilac purple of the wild state, it has as- 
sumed all hues, from pure white to dark purple and almost 
black, and even some which seem quite foreign to it, as yellow 
and certain slate-coloured tints, in which some profess to dis- 
tinguish shades of blue. These colours are varied and inter- 
mixed in a thousand ways upon a ground of the dominating 
tint, giving rise to striped, flaked, spotted, bordered, bi- or tri- 
coloured double or full flowers, with petals fringed or entire, 
realising almost every imaginable combination of form and 
colour. 
Every country of Europe, but principally Holland, Belgium, 
Germany, France, and England, has participated in the culti- 
vation of the Carnation; and each of these countries has pro- 
duced a series of varieties, more or less distinct, which they 
have attempted to classify systematically ; but these classifica~ 
tions, made without any common understanding, and resting 
almost all of them upon the whims of some amateurs, have 
augmented rather than diminished the confusion, We think 
we cannot do better than give an outline of those classifications 
which have received the greatest number of adherents in this 
branch of floriculture. According to the English classification, 
all the varieties of the Carnation are brought under three 
categories, viz. : Bizarres, Flakes and Picotees. The Bizarres 
are distinguished by their white ground, rayed or striped from 
the centre to the circumference, with bands of two or three 
clearly defined different colours or different tints of the same 
colour. The Flakes have also a white ground, but they are 
only striped or streaked with one colour. And Picotees, instead 
of having the petals longitudinally striped, have them bordered 
