56 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



September, 1911 



A cascade of Cheddar pinks (D. ccesius). Sow the 

 seeds in chinks on walls or rocks 



beginner, because the following names all 

 look as if they were distinct species: 

 D. dentosus, D. diadematus, D. Heddewigi, 

 D. hybridus, D. imperialis, D. laciniatus, 

 D. semperflorens: It is a big job to test 

 all these strains and varieties, and I will 

 therefore offer a few friendly pointers from 

 my own experience. 



The Japanese pinks (var. Heddewigi) 

 are the result of centuries of breeding by 

 Japanese gardeners. They have the widest 

 range of form and color, but have no 

 odor worth mentioning and are so tender 

 that they are practically annuals. The 

 dwarfs are best for bedding, and the taller 

 varieties for cutting. The older generation 

 admired the double sorts, which are about 

 an inch and a half across and represent 

 the perfection of formalism, but to me 

 they seem too fussy, because they have 

 every kind of variegation, sharp contrasts, 

 unpopular colors (e. g., Mourning Cloak 

 and other maroons), and so many teeth 

 on their petals that they would drive an 

 artist to the madhouse if he tried to draw 

 them all. I like better the single flowered 

 varieties of greater size, simplicity and 

 dignity, such as Crimson Belle, Eastern 

 Queen and the Royal pinks. The only 

 doubles I care to grow again are the 

 Dwarf Fireball and Dwarf Snowball, 

 which are consistently colored and good 

 for bedding. Most of all I value Purity, 

 a double white flower that really has some 

 fragrance. 



Next in popularity come the fringed 

 annual pinks (var. laciniatus). Of these, I 

 like best a large single strain known as 

 mirabilis, having self-colored flowers nearly 

 three inches across and with fringes almost 

 an inch long. The double sorts have 

 shorter fringes, but last longer, and the 

 best I know are Snowball and the orange- 

 scarlet Vesuvius. 



The Diadem strain (var. diadematus) 

 is as artificial as a picotee, being hope- 

 lessly variegated and having all the petals 

 rounded off as if any sign of toothing or 

 natural irregularity were a crime. 



r 



The two following are to be procured 

 from nurserymen, rather than seedsmen, 

 and may be regarded as hardy border 

 plants. 



The Amoor pink known to catalogues as 

 D. dentosus, should be called D. Chinensis, 

 var. macrosepalus. It has bright red 

 flowers with a spot at the base of each 

 petal. This form can be distinguished by 

 its large sepals. 



D. Chinensis, var. semperflorens, is very 

 interesting because it has fragrant flowers 

 and silvery foliage. The flowers are deep 

 pink, with a red eye. It grows in the 

 Alps according to J. W. Manning. Possibly 

 this is the plant which Bailey says was 

 formerly considered a distinct species, 

 but is now regarded by botanists as a 

 European form of the Chinese pink. 

 In that case it might be called the Portu- 

 guese pink since Bailey's plant extends 

 the range of this Chinese species as far 

 west as Portugal. It ought to prove of 

 value to hybridizers by putting fragrance 

 and longevity into the older strains. 



GARDEN, SCOTCH, OR GRASS PINKS 



We now come to those universal favorites 

 the common garden, grass, border, or 

 Scotch pinks (p. plumarius). These are 

 the ones that are famous for their fragrance, 

 hardiness, silvery foliage, winter beauty, 

 and perfection as edging plants. They 

 are perennial and have flowers about an 

 inch across which normally bear short 

 fringes. None of these characters how- 

 ever, will enable you always to distin- 

 guish them from the Chinese pinks 

 when you see them growing in the garden. 

 The only sure way to distinguish such 

 highly bred groups is by means of some 

 technical character, which has nothing to 

 do with size, color or other points of human 

 interest. The calyx lobes of D. plumarius 

 are short, broad and appressed; those of 

 D. Chinensis are leafy and spreading. 

 This distinction is of considerable interest 

 because it enables one to tell at a glance 

 the long-lived pinks from the short-lived 

 ones. 



One great advantage of the garden pinks 

 is that whenever we get a variety to our 

 liking we can perpetuate that identical 

 thing by division or layering, without 

 the bother of raising plants from seed and 

 getting a lot of rubbish. I have grown 

 about forty named varieties and I must 

 say that most of the things that breeders 

 struggle so hard to get appeal to me very 

 little. To get big flowers and long stems 

 for cutting, pinks have been crossed with 

 carnations, but such hybrids are usually 

 of ugly color, bordering on purple or 

 magenta, or the stems are floppy, or the 

 flowers are deadly formal. The most 

 formal of all — the laced pinks — we never 

 see in America, but they have been a 

 passion in England for about a century. 

 Thank Heaven, they are only for exhi- 

 bition, but think of 154 varieties of laced 

 pinks! In America the emphasis is put 

 on the everblooming pinks, for it is a sad 

 thing to bid good-bye to pinks in June for 



a whole year. Unfortunately some of 

 these are too double — they split the 

 calyx and look very messy. This is true 

 even of Her Majesty and Mrs. Sinkins. 

 Others have a top-heavy look and are 

 beaten down by the rain more than the 

 single kinds. Others bloom themselves 

 to death. 



The most wonderful of all is Napoleon 

 III, which blooms so freely from the 

 middle of June until severe frost that it is 

 in great demand for solid beds of color. 

 The color is blood-crimson, not the best 

 in the world, but the flowers are fra- 

 grant, and the plant has every other 

 virtue. In the last week of October, I 

 saw 1000 young plants at Philadelphia, 

 ninety per cent, of which were in bloom. 



One thing a collector should always do 

 is to try to get the wild original from which 

 the modern varieties have arisen. The 

 prototype of the garden pinks is native to 

 Austria and Siberia; it has merely run 

 wild in Scotland. This wild pink is a 

 purple flower, with more of a fringe than 

 the wild carnation but. less than D. superbus, 

 the cuts being about a fourth or fifth the 

 length of the petal. It is naturalized 

 on old walls in England. It bears seeds 

 freely, crosses readily, and sows itself in 

 the poorest gravels. 



When all is said and done, it is pretty 

 hard to beat the old, single, white pink 

 which anyone can get out of a five cent 

 package of seed. For five cents you can 

 raise enough plants to edge a garden walk, 

 and I know nothing more artistic. One of 

 the fussiest gardening notions ever in- 

 vented is the foot-wide edging of grass, 

 for it is a perfect nuisance to keep it trim. 

 If you have inherited this mediaeval prac- 

 tice forget it and try single white pinks. 



THE TALLER PINKS 



The genus Dianthus is a big one, con- 

 taining about 250 species, and Correvon 



The blood pink (D. cruentus), so called because of 

 the color of its flowers, which are clustered like 

 the sweet William, but smaller 



