30G 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



an element of wonder into the history, for carnations, in outward 

 expression, differ so much that we might, if judging them by 

 these outward characters, be easily persuaded of a complicated 

 hybridism and ambiguous origin. 



Early in the history of the flower it was famous for multipli- 

 city of petals and variety of colouring. Turner, in his " Herbal," 

 published 1550, says these flowers " are made pleasaunt and swete 

 with the labours and witt of man and not by nature." We 

 are bound to regard his words as representing his knowledge. 

 *\Ve may therefore conclude that long ere Turner's time the 

 florists had operated on the flower for its improvement, which 

 perhaps may assist us in the appreciation of its antiquity. Let 

 it not be supposed, however, that the British florists took the 

 wild carnation from the walls of Rochester Castle and made it 

 what it is ; for we have no evidence tending that way. But we 

 have evidence of the introduction of the carnation, as a garden 

 flower ready made, and it is highly probable that it was an 

 ancient flower in the time of Elizabeth, to whom Turner 

 dedicated his book ; for Shakespeare could not use it as he does 

 had it been a rarity or a new importation in his day. Beckmann, 

 in his " History of Inventions," suggests that " the modern taste 

 for flowers came from Persia to Constantinople, and was imported 

 thence to Europe, for the first time, in the sixteenth century." This, 

 on the testimony of Turner and Shakespeare alike, is a grave 

 error, and seriously invalidates what little Beckmann has to 

 say on the history of garden flowers. In 1550, when Turner 

 published, the "garden gelouers " were evidently well known 

 and in high favour ; while in 1601, when Shakespeare wrote the 

 Winter's Tale, the carnation must have been one of the most 

 popular flowers, because the " streaked gillyvors " are spoken of 

 familiarly, and were to be recognized by mixed audiences no less 

 than by the choice personages engaged in the stage dialogue.* A 

 dramatist of this day might in a dialogue introduce the moss 

 rose or the lily of the valley, but he would not mention the 

 Amorphophallus titanum unless he had an ambition to be flayed, 

 grilled, and peppered in the daily papers. Turner fixed the date 

 at about 350 years since. Eor the sake of a figure we will 

 assume that in his time it had been cultivated 350 years at least, 



* I adopt the spelling as it appears in Turner's " Herbal " ; and in the 

 first folio Shakespeare, published 1632. 



