1876. ] 
CARNATIONS AND PICOTEES.-CHAPTER IV. 
79 
“ With respect to the general forms of flowers, different shapes are best suited 
to different purposes. The cup-edged or rose-leaved petal, elegant as it is, is un- 
suited to show the colours of the Polyanthus, the Auricula, or the disked 
Cineraria, though it enhances the beauty of the Carnation, the Picotee, or Pink. 
“ Eegard must be had to the mode of colour before a decision can be pronounced 
on the form most available for its display. The most perfect is when the flower 
is calculated to produce both a general effect as a whole, and likewise to attract 
attention to its several parts.” 
A “way in which an adventitious magnitude is produced is when the lines 
both of form and colour are parallel, instead of crossing each other, and both run 
outwards (that is, towards infinity) withoijt a stop. This is well illustrated in 
the singular difference' of effect produced by the three florists’ species of Dianthus 
—the Carnation, Picotee, and Pink. Whichever may be the favourite, none, I 
think, will deny that all the grandeur belongs to the Carnation. The reason of 
this, though not obvious, is quite intelligible, and arises (to compare small things 
with great) from the same difference of principle that separates Gothic architec¬ 
ture from Classical—the principle of perpendicular and of horizontal lines. The 
stripes of the Carnation are disposed longitudinally, the same way with the length 
of the petal, and are not terminated by any visible end. They run out, as it were, 
and lose themselves in space. The lacing on the petal of a Picotee or Pink is 
stopped by its adjoining one, and it is transverse to the length of the petal; it 
forms a visible termination both to the flower and to its colours. Hence, a Pink 
often as large as the largest Carnation will necessarily appear small and confined 
in comparison. 
“ The restricting mode of colour, however, has its advantages, as well as its dis¬ 
advantages. For the Carnation, from its greater variety, both in forms and colours, 
ought to be the prettiest of the three, in which quality, I believe, most of my 
readers would be disposed to place it where I should myself, as the last instead of the 
first. There is a sort of masculine character imparted to it by its concentrated efforts 
towards magnitude, which impairs its delicacy. It is this direction of the lines of 
colour in the Picotee which make what are called “ bars ” a disfigurement, a 
sentence which many denounce as capricious and unreasonable, not considering 
that they are transverse to the lines of colour, and that lines at right angles are 
necessarily harsh. 
“ The other origin of beauty is colour^ the most obvious source of our 
varied pleasurable impressions from the flower-garden, and on which, there¬ 
fore, the reader may not unreasonably fear a discussion as long as that which has 
gone before. Happily, however, in this he will be mistaken ; for the philosophic 
or constant elements of its effectiveness, to which I am here confined, are few 
.With regard to colours in general, the preference of one before 
another arises, for the most part, from causes of which I do not treat, for each 
has intrinsically an equal right to admiration. Much belongs to individual taste, 
much to accidental circumstance, such as variety ; and these, as not reducible to 
