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The Indian Pink
Dianthus Chinensis.
VARIABILITY is a common characteristic of garden flowers, and is the quality on which depends very much of the interest they excite in the mind of the florist. A flower that continues constant to its typical character, or but rarely manifests a capability of varying, will never attain to high popularity, no matter how splendid may be its appearance when in full dress. The Indian pink possesses the charming property of changeableness in an especial degree, and the consequence is that our gardens abound with distinct and rich varieties that in some instances are so far removed from the type that the relationship can only be determined by the trained eye of the critical botanist. The splendid forms known as Dianthus Heddewegi, D. giganteus, and D. laciniatus are all sub-sections, or "strains," of D. Chinensis, and it is not unlikely that if they were at this moment destroyed, they could be reproduced from the species within the lifetime of an earnest florist who should have the good fortune to begin early and be spared to labour late in developing the variability of this gay and useful plant. In its simple, and for present purposes we may say original state, as the common Indian pink, it is surely the cheapest and most beautiful of all our hardy annuals; but in its improved condition it ranks as a florist's flower, and we name the finest examples and regard them as perennials because they are propagated from cuttings. In the books the Indian pink is a biennial, being so classed because it is usually sown in summer to flower the next summer, and having flowered, dies. But it has been our rule to sow the seed early in a frame, and put the plants out in a bed of light rich soil in the month of May, and have them gloriously in flower from July to the end of the season: thus it becomes an annual. But it does not of necessity die after the first season's flowering, for on a dry soil it will live many years, if the dead flowers are removed, so as to prevent the swelling of seed-pods: thus it becomes a perennial. A majority of so-called "biennials" may be treated as annuals or perennials at the discretion of the cultivator. Of all the common plants, the life-term of which may be thus contracted or prolonged at pleasure, the most interesting, perhaps, is the mignonette. As usually treated it is an annual; but we have had immense mignonette trees that have lived fifteen years, and become quite woody and venerable, the one secret of keeping them so long being the systematic prevention of seeding. Allow them to swell a fair crop of seeds, and away they go. Do not allow a single seed-pod to swell, and in all probability a mignonette plant would live as long as its owner, and then become an "heirloom," or more likely a "white elephant," to another possessor. The Indian pink was introduced about 1713 by a French missionary named Bignon, and soon became a popular garden flower. The plant has a singularly frail appearance, and yet it is by no means tender in constitution. The narrow glaucous leaves, too, seem out of proportion to its large and richly-coloured flowers, a quality which may be termed "alpine," for the plants of the mountains commonly produce flowers of immense size in proportion to the herbage that sustains them. Any ordinary good soil will suit this plant, but excessive damp in winter is to be carefully avoided by the cultivator, and therefore, when grown on a heavy soil, the stock should either be wintered in pots and boxes in a frame, or in a bed in a pit, or, if in the open, a raised bed should be prepared for them consisting of good loam with a considerable proportion of sand. From this they may be transplanted in April to the beds or borders in which they are to flower. But this is beginning at the wrong end, because it presupposes the possession of plants. The very best way to obtain a stock is to sow seed in an open border or cold frame in May or June. If the plants are required to flower as early as possible the same season, sow in February or March in pots or pans, and place on a hotbed or in a warm house, and as soon as the seedlings have made a little progress, prick them out into boxes and nurse them with care, and plant out early in May. It is singular that the word "pink" is so various in its meaning, that it may be cited as one of the wonders of philology. We talk of the "pink of perfection;" and a flower does not cease to be a pink though its colour may be white, purple, or even yellow. Whitsunday is a "pink day," but the term Pentecost does not mean either a White Sunday or a Pink Sunday, but simply the "fiftieth" From "Pentecost" however, we have not only the name of a festival of the Church, but the name of a flower and of a colour, and of a process that has melancholy suggestions--that of "pinking." By a roundabout but not uncertain process, a pink becomes an eye, and also anything that glitters. The French term for the flower is oeillet, an eye, or eyelet, and it is in accordance with the most common mutations of words to find that pink is a merely sharpened form of the older word bink, and this again a departure from wink, and, following this up, we attain to the Anglo-Saxon wincian, or, as we have it in common parlance, winking a movement of the lids of the eyes. A pilot's boat is sometimes called a "pink," and the scar resulting from a wound is also called by the same name. Thus, in Cowper's expostulation, "pink'd" means marked with stabs-- "He found thee savage, and he left thee tame; Taught thee to clothe thy pink'd and painted hide, And grace thy figure with a soldier's pride."
