Dianthus

“ It will only do harm to leave them crowded in the seed-bed, and the second move will better enable them to withstand winter frosts. The Dianthus thrives in a sandy or loamy soil, with full exposure to sunshine, and the plants scarcely need water or any attention the whole season through. ”

“ Pink, pingk, n. a flower of any one of several plants of the genus Dianthus—carnation, &c.: a shade of light-red colour like that of the flower: a scarlet hunting-coat, also the person wearing such: the minnow, from the colour of its abdomen in summer: any type or example of excellence in its kind.—adj. ”

“ Arbutus Uva-ursi and Epilobium alpinum. Both grow on many of the Grampian Mountains.
Dianthus deltoides I likewise observed in several parts of Angus, and in one found a variety of it with a stem not divided as is generally the case, but simple, and supporting only one flower. Is it not probable that this or some other variety of the same species is the plant mentioned by Sibbald as growing on a hill near Perth, and inserted in the 'Flora Scotica' under the name of Dianthus arenarius? ”

“ There is perhaps an additional cause, namely, self-fertilisation; for many plants of Dianthus and Lobelia, which had been raised from self-fertilised seeds, had their anthers in this state; but these instances are not conclusive, as both genera are liable from other causes to this affection.
Cases of an opposite nature likewise occur, namely, plants with the female organs struck with sterility, whilst the male organs remain perfect. Dianthus Japonicus, a Passiflora, and Nicotiana, have been described by Gärtner [407] as being in this unusual condition. ”

“ So in the genus Dianthus, according to C. P. Gaertner, artificial hybrids are very readily produced, and are more fertile than those of almost any other plants, and yet wild hybrids are very rare. Lecoq, it is true, speaks of hybrids between D. Monspessulasnus and D. Seguieri as being very abundant in the Montdore, and certainly these two species are, in that locality, very variable, but not more so than I have observed them in the Pyrenees, Provence, &c., when growing separately. ”

“ The Dianthus superbus is a native of Germany, Switzerland, France, and Denmark: Clusius found it growing in the moist meadows about Vienna, and on the borders of woods adjoining to such, with some of its flowers white, others purplish; Parkinson describes them of these two colours, but says the most ordinary with us are pure white, which is contrary to what we now find them: they are rarely produced before August, from which period they will continue frequently to blossom till October.
The Spring is the best time for sowing its seeds; the plants require no very nice or particular treatment. ”

“ It may be doubted whether the Dianthus superbus of Miller's Dict. ed. 6. 4to. be our plant; if it be, the description is not drawn up with that accuracy which distinguishes his descriptions in general; the mode of culture, however, which he recommends is strictly applicable to it, as the plant rarely continues in vigour more than two years, and as it is in its greatest beauty the first year of its flowering, he recommends that young plants should be annually raised for succession from seeds, which are plentifully produced ”

“ Folkard says it was “apparently a kind of pet-name to all manner of plants.” Parkinson seems to have called Carnations, Clove-Gillyflowers, and Stocks, the Stock-Gillyflowers, and Wall-flowers, Wall-Gillyflowers. It is generally thought that the earlier writers called the Dianthus by this name, and later ones, the Cheiranthus cheiri, or Matthiola. Some of the names for them show how sadly imagination has waned since the seventeenth century. ”

“ Hence, in such plants there is a tendency to a separation of the sexes, while, from what has been before stated, it might be expected that rudiments of the male or female organs would be found, and also as a result of the operation of the law of inheritance. On the same principles it is easy to understand the occasional presence of the perfect in place of the rudimentary organs, as in Dianthus. ”

“ The Dianthus and its several splendid varieties do better as annuals than biennials. For all the ordinary purposes of display, Lobelias may be as well grown from seed as from cuttings, and in every garden will be found proof of the small amount of care they require; for we find stray, self-sown plants in pots of Geraniums and other places, and these, if left alone, become perfect bushes, and are a mass of flowers all the summer. Many annuals commonly reputed to be tender and usually raised in heat do very well indeed on a more rough and ready method. ”

“ These two species (Mesembryanthemum and Crassicornis) are quite beautiful enough to give a beginner amusement: but there are two others which are not uncommon, and of such exceeding loveliness, that it is worth while to take a little trouble to get them. The one is Dianthus, which I have already mentioned; the other Bellis, the sea-daisy, of which there is an excellent description and plates in Mr. Gosse’s “Rambles in Devon,” pp. 24 to 32.
It is common at Ilfracombe, and at Torquay; and indeed everywhere where there are cracks and small holes in limestone or slate rock. ”

“ Herbs, with opposite entire leaves, symmetrical 4–5-merous flowers, with or without petals, the distinct stamens no more than twice the number of the sepals, either hypogynous or perigynous, styles 2–5 (or rarely united into one) ; seeds several or usually many, attached to the base or to the central column of the 1-celled (rarely 3–5-celled) pod, with a slender embryo coiled or curved around the outside of mealy albumen, in Dianthus nearly straight.—Bland herbs; the stems usually swollen at the joints; uppermost leaves rarely alternate. ”

“ A. troglodytes, is seldom found larger than a florin. Its general size is that of a shilling. From the description previously given, the reader will be able to make the acquaintance of this anemone without any trouble whatever.
A. dianthus (Plumose anemone) , is one of the most delicately beautiful of all the Actiniæ; it can, moreover, be very readily identified in its native haunts. Its colour is milky-white,—body, base, and tentacula, all present the same chaste hue. Specimens, however, are sometimes found lemon-coloured, and occasionally of a deep orange tint. ”

“ Also with the most susceptible of all characters, that of colour, it cannot escape the careful observer that in the separate forms the inclination to vary is displayed in very different degrees. Among plants which arise from one spontaneous fertilisation there are often some whose offspring vary widely in the constitution and arrangement of the colours, while others furnish forms of little deviation, and among a greater number solitary examples occur which transmit the colour of the flowers unchanged to their offspring. The cultivated species of Dianthus afford an instructive example of this. ”

“ Bot. t., &c. 2. Digynia. Saxifraga, remarkable for having the germen inferior, half inferior, and superior, in different species, a very rare example. See Engl Bot. t., 440, 663, 1009, 500, 501. Dianthus, the Pink or Carnation tribe, and some of its very distinct natural order, Caryophylleæ, conclude the Decandria Digynia.
3. Trigynia. The Caryphylleæ are here continued, as Cucubalus, t., Silene, t., 1398, Arenaria, t., 512, very prolific and intricate genera in the Levant. Malpighia and Banisteria, beautiful plants of the Maple family, which next occur, have no affinity to the foregoing. ”

“ Blossom 5 petals: the claws the length of the calyx, narrow, and inserted into the receptacle: border flat without, broadly obtuse, and notched.
Chives. Ten threads, awl-shaped, the length of the calyx: tips oval, oblong, compressed, and incumbent.
Pointal. Seed-bud oval. Shafts two, awl-shaped, and longer than the chives. Summit recurved, and pointed.
Seed-vessel. Capsule cylindrical, straight, one loculament, four-sided, and splitting at the end.
Seeds many, compressed, nearly round, and freed from the receptacle.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Dianthus alpinus. ”

“ In the foreground, at the root of a vine, Dionysus is sitting, in a posture of statuesque weariness; the leaves of the vine are grandly drawn, and wreathing heavily round the head of the god, suggest the notion of his incorporation into it. The right hand, holding a great vessel languidly and indifferently, lets the stream of wine flow along the earth; while the left supports the forehead, shadowing heavily a face, comely, but full of an expression of painful brooding. ”

“ A live buffalo is next killed, and its flesh is divided among the mandarins. According to one account, the effigy of the ox is made of clay, and, after being beaten by the governor, is stoned by the people till they break it in pieces, "from which they expect an abundant year." Here the corn-spirit appears to be plainly represented by the corn-filled ox, whose fragments may therefore be supposed to bring fertility with them.
On the whole we may perhaps conclude that both as a goat and as a bull Dionysus was essentially a god of vegetation. ”

“ You will have a vision of Dionysus and the Graces. The grapes on the vine, and when they are being crushed in the press, smell of roses, and the new-made wine in the jars is a "rill of nectar," if one may trust Homer. [4] Then why is not such a vine as this abundant and growing over very many acres?
Perhaps I was not a very industrious gardener. But since my mixing bowl of Dionysus is inclined to soberness and calls for a large proportion of the nymphs, [5] I only provided enough for myself and my friends — and they are very few. ”

“ The opacity of the water produces the same result as the absence of light in the deep lakes of New England, where diatoms are found only on the stalks or roots of water-plants near the shore, while in shallow ponds, such as the small lake near the summit of Mt. Lafayette, the growth is abundant. Certain species will grow wherever there are moisture, light and heat, but the greater number require the presence, in small amounts, of substances produced by the decay of animal and vegetable life. ”

“ In one of the earliest classifications of diatoms, the individual cell received less consideration than the nature of the filament or thallus in which many species occur in the first stages of their growth. Those, however, which exist in colonies at first are, sooner or later, broken up into separate frustules, either before or at the time of their maturity or previous to conjugation, while very many species are never seen except in a free state. ”

“ Deities of vegetation, who are believed to pass a certain portion of each year underground, naturally come to be regarded as gods of the lower world or of the dead. Both Dionysus and Osiris were so conceived.
A feature in the mythical character of Dionysus, which at first sight appears inconsistent with his nature as a deity of vegetation, is that he was often conceived and represented in animal shape, especially in the form, or at least with the horns, of a bull. ”

“ In the case of partly siliceous species, washing in pure water repeatedly is all that can be done. The larger and heavier diatoms may be separated from the sand by elutriation or by whirling in a casserole, by rocking in a shallow dish the shape of a watch crystal, or by pouring slowly over a strip of plate-glass at least two feet in length inclined at an angle of thirty degrees. ”

“ I often compare him to a woodman trying to straighten some ill-grown sapling, pulling so immoderately in the opposite direction as to exceed the mean, and so dragging the plant awry on the other side. This is very much what we find to be the case with Dionysius. While vehemently opposing the impiety of the Libyan, [4] he is carried away unawares by his zeal into the opposite error. ”

“ One of his titles was “teeming” or “bursting” (as of sap or blossoms) ; and there was a Flowery Dionysus in Attica and at Patrae in Achaia. The Athenians sacrificed to him for the prosperity of the fruits of the land. Amongst the trees particularly sacred to him, in addition to the vine, was the pine-tree. The Delphic oracle commanded the Corinthians to worship a particular pine-tree “equally with the god,” so they made two images of Dionysus out of it, with red faces and gilt bodies. In art a wand, tipped with a pine-cone, is commonly carried by the god or his worshippers. ”

“ Therefore when we find, as we have done, that Dionysus—a tree-god—is sometimes represented in goat form,147 we can hardly avoid concluding that this representation is simply a part of his proper character as a tree-god and is not to be explained by the fusion of two distinct and independent cults, in one of which he originally appeared as a tree-god and in the other as a goat. If such a fusion took place in the case of Dionysus, it must equally have taken place in the case of the Pans and Satyrs of Greece, the Fauns of Italy, and the Ljeschie of Russia. ”

“ Moreover, among the emblems of Dionysus was the winnowing-fan, that is the large open shovel-shaped basket, which down to modern times has been used by farmers to separate the grain from the chaff by tossing the corn in the air. This simple agricultural instrument figured in the mystic rites of Dionysus; indeed the god is traditionally said to have been placed at birth in a winnowing-fan as in a cradle: in art he is represented as an infant so cradled ”