Mary Alexander also did the illustrations
Pliny wrote of the discovery in Spain of the clove-scented pink and its heady introduction into Italy where it became popular for flavouring wine, the original Sops-in-wine. This flower was known as Cantabrica. It was later to be classified by Linnaeus as 'Dianthus - the Divine Flower'.
In his New Herbal Dr. Turner, Dean of Wells, named this plant Cantabrica Gelouer. The common name from Elizabethan times (and still in use) is gilliflower, from giroflier, the French for clove tree.
Stephen Blake's Complete Gardeners' Practice (1664) advises that".. .to be revenged on a person who steals your tulips, sprinkle dry powdered Elecampagne root on clove gilliflowers, then give your flowers to the party that you wish to be revenged of. Be it a he or a she, they will delight in smelling to it, then they will draw this powder into their nostrils, which will make them fall a-sneezing, and a great trouble to the eyes will make the tears run down their thighs." I must admit that when I grew pinks along with my herbs I had not allowed for the endless pleasure I might have had with unsuspecting visitors to my garden ...!
Of all the 'clipping pinks' (carnations, sweet williams and pinks) which we still see on our market stalls, the most favoured were the pinks. By 1665 John Rea had listed dozens of varieties, and the pink was always in fashion and one of the most favoured of the ten florists' flowers for years to come.
As a child who spent much of my Cornish childhood in my grandfather's market garden picking, bunching and packaging flowers for the Covent Garden and Manchester markets. I learned from an early age how to distinguish and love the various scents.
The aristocrats of the garden were the violets, but to a child the warm spicy smell of pinks and carnations was far more 'noseworthy'. Singles, doubles, wire edged - the names escape my memory, but who can forget 'Bridal Veil', 'Sam Barlow', 'Old Fringed' and 'Mrs. Sinkins', whose memory is perpetuated in the coat-of-arms of Slough, where her husband introduced this gloriously fragrant pink in 1868. -