Carnation

Carnation, or Coronation, as Spenser calls it from its use in garlands, is Dianthus Caryophyllus, a species of pink apparently wild on the Continent, but in England only naturalised on the walls of Norman castles, perhaps from being introduced from Normandy by their builders. Its specific name was corrupted into gillyflower; its perfume gave it the name clove; its laced edges, the name picotee, from the French picote, pearl-edged; and its use, that of sops-in-wine. The innumerable cultivated varieties, which are propagated by layering, may be grouped in four classes: - cloves or selfs, all of one colour; flakes, striped with one colour on a white ground; bizarres, striped with two colours on a white ground; and picotees, edged or laced with a distinct colour.