PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
43 
Carnations, 
(1) The fairest flowers o’ the season 
Are our Carnations and streak’d Gillyvors, 
Which some call Nature’s bastards ,—-Winters Tale,\\. 4, 81, 
(2) Then make your garden rich in Gillyvors, 
And do not call them bastards.— Ibid., 98. 
There are two other places in which Carnation is mentioned, 
but they refer to carnation colour— i. e. to pure flesh colour. 
(3) ’A could never abide Carnation ; ’twas a colour he never liked. 
Henry V, ii. 3, 35. 
(4) Pray you, sir, how much Carnation riband may a man buy for a 
remuneration?— Love's Labour's Lost, iii. 1, 146, 
Dr. Johnson and others have supposed that the flower is so 
named from the colour, but that this is a mistake is made very 
clear by Dr. Prior. He quotes 
Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar — 
“ Bring Coronations and Sops-in- 
Wine 
Worn of Paramours” ; 
and so it is spelled in Lyte’s 
“Herbal,” 1578, coronations or 
cornations. This takes us at 
once to the origin of the name. 
The plant was one of those used 
in garlands (coronce), and was pro¬ 
bably one of the most favourite 
plants used for that purpose, for 
which it was well suited by its 
shape and beauty. Pliny gives 
along list of garland flowers (Coronamentorum genera') used by 
the Romans and Athenians, and Nicander gives similar lists of 
