246 THE ASSOCIATIONS OF FLOWERS 
In winter, when the flowers have perished and left the 
scene almost desolate, the long, slender leaves of the 
pinks, covered with their sea-green-coloured powdery 
bloom, and planted in tufts about the borders, still remain 
as a memory of the past and a hope of the future. 
There are, in our island, five native species of pink; 
but they are generally rare, and when abundant are limited 
in their places of growth. So that many persons who are 
familiar with wild-flowers would be surprised to hear that 
such a thing as a wild pink was to be found beneath a 
hedge or in a meadow. 
The little Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria) is the least 
rare kind; and it may sometimes be seen thickly inter- 
spersed among the grass of a meadow land. The form 
of its blossom is similar to that of the single garden pink. 
Each flower is about the size of one flower of the sweet- 
william; and the blossoms grow like those of that plant, 
in a cluster, but the cluster is much smaller. This scent- 
less pink, even when it is found in plenty, does not, like 
the yellow cowslip and the blue speedwell, give its pecu- 
liar hue to the spot on which it abounds; as its small 
rose-coloured or white petals are not, at a distance, dis- 
tinguishable among the grass, and the stem and foliage 
are of a dark-green tint. Its petals are notched at the 
margin; and the rose-coloured blossoms are speckled with 
minute white dots. The plant is about a foot high ; and 
it blossoms in the months of July and August. 
Various opinions have been given as to the origin of the 
garden pink (Dianthus hortensis), which some botanists 
think was derived from a wild pink that grows also in the 
fields, while others consider it is but a cultivated kind of 
the species which grows on old walls, and is commonly 
known by the name of the castle pink or wild clove pink. 
It is generally believed that the pink was quite unknown 
to the ancients. 
One wild species, the mountain pink (Dianthus coesius), 
is a large, handsome flower, and grows only on lofty 
mountains. Never is it found on plain or valley; but it 
is one of those blossoms whose beauty gladdens the moun- 
taineer, or bids the traveller wonder that so lovely a 
flower should be blushing on the lone summit scarcely 
accessible to his footstep, or cheering a rock where only 
