148 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
November 3, 18 
The Florists' Laced Pink, 
By James Thukstan. 
As promised in my article which appeared in the issue 
of this journal for September 1st, I have now the 
pleasure of giving my views as to “ the properties con¬ 
stituting a really good exhibition Pink,” and in doing 
so I will, for the purpose of supporting these views, 
annex the opinions expressed by noted growers from 
forty-five to ninety-six years ago, and which, when 
carefully compared, will be found to agree, as near as 
possible, with the rules I laid down four years ago for 
the guidance of judges, vide The Gardeners' Magazine 
of March 1st, 1884. 
I have been considering whether I could make my 
ideas more comprehensive to the amateur now than 
those rules are capable of doing ; but finding that I 
cannot, I here repeat them. 
The points of merit, when Pinks are being judged, to 
be based upon the following rules :— 
1. —Substance of petals, and purity of white. 
2. —Petals to be as near rose-edged as possible—that 
is, not to have serrated edges. 
3. —Size and shape of petals. 
4-—Brightness in colour and refinement of lacing— 
that is, the less the colour runs or juts into the white 
the better, leaving the lacing to resemble, as near as 
possible, a solid line round the petals, or what is better 
known as the “ wire-edge ” lacing. 
5.—Shape and size of flower when dressed for 
exhibition, which should be well filled with petals 
without any appearance of confusion ; and no flower 
should contain less than twenty petals. 
The maximum points in judging should be three for 
substance and purity, four for evenness of petals, three 
for size and shape of the petals, five for brightness and 
regularity of the lacing, and five for the shape and size 
of the flower. 
It will thus be seen that my views, on the whole, are 
the pith of those expressed by the growers of the past, 
and that the “ Pink of perfection ” should resemble as 
much as possible a fine double white Camellia, both as 
to smoothness on the edges of the petals, purity of the 
white, substance and shape of petals, and the imbri¬ 
cation of the latter, with a refined lacing, either heavy 
or light, of any colour or shade, but the more brilliant 
the hue the better. 
The petals of some Pinks lie flat in the flower, others 
have a tendency to “cup” or become concave, while 
others are convex ; the blooms of the latter when fully 
expanded approach the half of a globe. Some petals 
have a white edge outside of the lacing, others have the 
lacing quite up to the edge ; but these differences arise 
naturally, and, in my mind, should in no way cause 
the grower or judge any difficulty. One grower may 
prefer, according to his taste, a flat flower to one 
cupped, or to one approaching a half globe, and the 
taste of another may be the reverse, and so with regard 
to the “ white edge.” 
What a marked variation of opinion there is in this 
respect between “R. M.” of 1847 and the writer of 
1843 (quoted hereafter) ! The latter insists that the 
shape of half a ball (globe) is the Pink nearest per¬ 
fection, whilst the former says the flower must be 
perfectly flat. Again, the 1843 writer claims the white 
edge outside the lacing as indispensable, but “ R. M.” 
of 1847 condemns it. 
In conclusion, a Pink dressed for exhibition measur¬ 
ing from 2£ ins. to 3 ins. in diameter, and containing 
from twenty to forty petals of the shape and style of 
lacing of guard petal Pig. 1, each tier of petals de¬ 
creasing in size up to the centre or crown of the flower, 
and showing a clear “ half-moon ’ of a good pure white 
ground, with the substance of a Camellia petal, and 
the colour and refinement of lacing as described in 
Rule 4, either heavily or lightly laced, is what I con¬ 
sider constitutes a really good “ Florists’ Laced Pink.” 
Fig. 2 represents the serrated petal of the past, with 
the lacing and colour of the eye or throat jutting or 
running into the white, and the white running into 
the lacing, and is termed a “strap,” “spoon,” or 
spade shaped petal, and a flower containing such 
shaped petals as these cannot be properly dressed, as 
the unnecessary width of the bottom part of the petals 
comes in contact with each other inside the pod or 
calyx during the process of arranging the petals, and 
thus causes great difficulty in placing them so that 
they may present the best appearance in the flowers 
intended for exhibition. 
There has been much said at different times about a 
“ burst pod.” I would, of course, prefer a flower with 
a perfect pod, but a burst one should not disqualify 
the flower for exhibition ! 
I hope that some old Pink growers, who may read 
this article, will favour the subscribers to this journal 
with their opinions as to how far they agree with me 
in regard to this very interesting and practical subject. 
The following are the quotations from old Pink 
critics previously referred to 
Maddock of 1792 speaks of the properties of a fine 
double Pink thus: “The petals should be large, 
broad and substantial, and have very fine fringed or 
serrated edges, free from large coarse deep notches or 
indentures ; in short, they approach nearest to perfec¬ 
tion when the fringe on the edges is so fine as scarcely 
to be discernible, but it would be considered a very 
desirable object to obtain them perfectly rose-leaved, 
that is, without any fringe at all. ” 
The Gardener and P/actical Florist of 1843 contains 
an article on the properties of a “Florists’ Pink,” and 
says : ‘ ‘ The petals should be thick, broad, and smooth 
on the edges, without notch or serration ; they should 
be regularly disposed (meaning placed or imbricated), 
and each row should be smaller than that immediately 
under it. The ground colour should be pure white, 
and the colour, whatever it may be, from rose colour 
to dark red, or from lilac to dark purple, approaching 
black, and a narrow, plain, even lacing or stripe of the 
colour should appear inside the ‘white edge,’ which 
should be just the same width outside the lacing as 
the lacing itself is. The side view of a bloom should 
appear like half a ball. Some have averred that such a 
shape has never been attained, but this does not alter 
the case ; we are not content with less than half a ball, 
because it is the richest, the most effective, and is the 
only proper standard of perfection ! ” 
1 . 2 . 
1, Pink guard petal, with perfect lacing. 2, The serrated petal 
of the past. 
In The Midland Florist of 1847, “ R. M.” writes 
upon the subject, and says: “I want the size of the 
London flowers, the smooth-edge lacing, &c. I want 
to see them with a petal something like a Camellia, 
smooth on the edge, with some substance in it, and 
which I have no doubt may and will be obtained by 
strict attention being paid to collecting seed from sorts 
which have good properties, particularly a good petal. ” 
Then he suggests the following code of rules forjudging 
the Pink: “The flowers to be perfectly flat, except a 
crown formed with a few inner petals ; the colour to be 
well defined ; the white to be clear and distinct ; the 
lacing and eye or centre to correspond in colour ; the 
lacing to be well laid on to the edge of the petal—not 
to show a white fringe outside the lacing ; the petals to 
imbricate each other neatly, and showing the lacing 
distinct, and no flower to contain less than twelve 
petals.” 
In this same volume “ H. S. M.” writes and says: 
11 1 want the size of the London flowers, with the smooth 
edges and perfect lacing ; but I want to see them 
without the confused mass of small * strap ’-shaped 
petals in the middle of the flowers, and with the petals 
well imbricating each other, with a few perfectly-shaped 
ones in the centre to form a crown.” 
Again, in this volume, follows the remarks of the 
late Samuel Morton, alias “Professor Morton, the 
artist,” of Birmingham, and there was no man who can 
possibly possess a better idea of what a really good 
Carnation, Picotee, or Pink should be than he did,°and 
there are old growers now living who would probably 
say no man could ever excel “Sam Morton” in pre¬ 
paring and dressing a stand of Carnations, Picotees, or 
Pinks for exhibition. 
He says : “ The reason why, in the midland counties, 
and especially in Birmingham, the London-bred Pinks 
are not liked, is that they are too full and too moppy, 
and the confused mass of petals cannot be dressed and 
arranged so as to imbricate the petals from the outer 
circle to the crown. It is not that a full flower is not 
admired in preference to an empty one— i.e., one with 
only a few tiers of petals in it. We think that five 
petals only should make a circle. A flower of this 
make, with six tiers of petals in it, each row decreasing 
in size up to the crown, with clean smooth edges, free 
from notch or serrature, and a dark bold lacing, would 
be more like the standard by which Pinks are judged 
here.”— Finsbury House, Pdchmo-nd Enad, Cardiff. 
Carnation Germania. 
I AM glad that Mr. Fry has given me an opportunity 
for correcting an obvious blunder. What I should 
have written was old not dea.d wood. What I meant 
to convey was this, that after removing the rooted 
layers and potting them, I turned the old plants 
out of their blooming pots, shook a good deal of the 
soil from the roots, trimmed them, and then re-potted 
in smaller pots : with the result that the old wood is 
breaking forth freely into growth, and I anticipate 
these plants, even if they do not give me flower during 
the coming summer, will yet furnish me with a good 
deal of stock. A plant of Will Threlfall is breaking 
into growth in the same way. As a matter of course, 
no one would think of getting exhibition flowers from 
such plants ; they would prefer to grow on strong- 
rooted layers. I hear general complaints that layers 
are rooting indifferently this year, and especially so as 
late-layered plants. Early layering is, no doubt, a 
good practice.— P. D. 
-- 
AUTUMN TINTS IN KENT. 
At a moderate distance from the great metropolis, and 
just beyond the contaminating influence of a smoke¬ 
laden atmosphere, the autumn tints in most of our 
ordinary ornamental and forest trees are far richer and 
varied in colour, while they are also seen to better 
advantage against the blue sky above and the green 
fields and pastures beneath them. At High Elms, Kent, 
the residence of Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., the 
park and plantations are rich in valuable exotic trees ; 
but the most common British kinds are also exceed¬ 
ingly attractive and interesting. 
Great spreading Beeches of a rich chestnut-brown 
occupy every point of vantage all over the'park, while 
the ponderous Elms in their green and rich yellow 
garbs occupy the lower levels. The glaucous green hue 
of the Scotch Pine, with its red stem, contrasts beauti¬ 
fully with the white-stemmed Birch close at hand ; 
whilst the drooping branches of the latter give grace 
to it at any season. The sombre green of Pinus 
austriaca is beautifully relieved by the yellow foliage of 
the Sycamore, and to a greater extent by the warm 
clear yellow of the Norway Maple. 
In the immediate vicinity of the mansion itself the 
variety is as much increased by the natural forms of 
the trees themselves as by the colours, and the Firs, 
Cedars, Spruces, Sequoias, Junipers, and Holm Oak being 
evergreen, they retain their tints as well as their warm 
sheltering appearance during winter. The spreading 
branches and long drooping glaucous leaves of the 
Himalayan Pinus excelsa is widely distinct from P. 
austriaca, P. Laricio, or the strikingly columnar-habited 
Cembran Pine (P. cembra), a native of Switzerland and 
Siberia, admirably adapted for exposed situations, and' 
to prevent the accumulations of snow on the branches, 
which are densely covered with foliage to the ground. 
How strikingly different is the umbrella-like arrange¬ 
ment of the leaves in tufts at the apex of the branches 
of the Californian P. Coulteri. 
More pyramidal in habit are Sequoia gigantea with a 
glaucous hue ; S. sempervirens with its dark foliage 
and spongy red bark; and Cedrus atlantica with 
glaucous leaves. The latter, however, fades in interest 
when compared with the silvery sheen of C. a. glauca, 
which is almost as white as if covered with hoar frost. 
The Pinsapo Silver Fir (Abies pinsapo) is here repre¬ 
sented by a perfectly pyramidal specimen, about 60 ft. 
high, and furnished to the ground with its dark and 
glaucous-tinted foliage. The fashion has changed since 
the Cedar was first introduced, and it would seem as if 
C. deodara i3 likely to take the place of the lordly 
Cedars of Lebanon, and that the latter, with their huge 
spreading or horizontal branches, are likely to be the 
last of their race when the aged giants succumb to the 
effects of time. 
Amongst deciduous trees, besides those mentioned 
are the English and Turkey Oaks, the common and the 
Crimean Lime trees (Tilia vulgaris and T. petiolaris), 
the black and white Poplars, of which distinct glimpses 
