Carnations and Mother's Day

Carnations for Mother's Day may echo an ancient legend that the first carnation flower appeared on earth the year the mother of Christ bore her son. Another has it that this flower sprang from her tears shed on her way to his crucifixion. However, carnations have been known and cultivated for more than 2,000 years, a fact which seems to refute these legends.

The word carnation itself, coming from the Italian carne, meaning flesh or meat, seems a most unromantic name for this elegant flower. There are two explanations for this. Authorities who favor flesh maintain that pink carnations have the flesh tones used in early Italian paintings. Those who prefer meat insist that the carnations the Romans knew were the red and white striped variety suggesting the marbling of fat in a piece of steak.

All types of carnation flowers have such a crisp and perky air that it is hard to believe they are used in Korea to tell a dreary fortune. There, girls who find three flowers on a single stem wear the blossoms in their hair. If the top flower withers first, the last years of life will be difficult. If the bottom flower wilts, the wearer will have hard luck in her youth. If all three flowers die at the same time, the poor girl is said to be in store for a very difficult life.

In Elizabethan time, English people were fond of spiced wine, especially when it was flavored with cloves. But cloves, which they called the "black rose," had to be imported from the Orient and were very expensive. When someone discovered that carnations soaked in wine made an acceptable substitute, the flowers became known as "clove pinks." One of the carnation's least lovely names, derived from this same custom, was "sop-in-wine." Dianthus, to which it is fairly entitled, is much nicer.

For some reason or other, poets who can turn out heart throbs for roses have rarely addressed versus to the carnation. But here is the first stanza from a poem by Margaret Widdemer which may make you want to read the rest:

"Carnations and my first love!
And he was seventeen,
"And I was only twelve years-- a
stately look between."

Check this Google search for Carnations.