Dianthus
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| Missing image Dianthus_plumarius0.jpg Dianthus plumarius flower | ||||||||||||
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About 300 species; see text |
Dianthus is a genus of about 300 species of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae, native mainly to Europe and Asia, with a few species extending south to north Africa, and one species (D. repens) in arctic North America. Common names include carnation (D. caryophyllus), pink (D. plumarius and related species) and sweet william (D. barbatus). The name Dianthus is from the Greek words dios ("god") and anthos ("flower"), and was cited by the Greek botanist Theophrastus.
The species are mostly perennial herbs, a few are annual or biennial, and some are low subshrubs with woody basal stems. The leaves are opposite, simple, mostly linear and often strongly glaucous grey-green to blue-green. The flowers have five petals, typically with a frilled margin, and are (in almost all species) pale to dark pink. One species (D. knappii) has yellow flowers with a purple centre.
- Species
- Dianthus alpinus
- Dianthus amurensis
- Dianthus anatolicus
- Dianthus arenarius
- Dianthus armeria - Deptford Pink
- Dianthus barbatus - Sweet William
- Dianthus biflorus
- Dianthus brevicaulis
- Dianthus callizonus
- Dianthus campestris
- Dianthus capitatus
- Dianthus carthusianorum - Carthusian Pink
- Dianthus caryophyllus - Carnation or Clove Pink
- Dianthus chinensis - China pink
- Dianthus cruenatus
- Dianthus deltoides - Maiden Pink
- Dianthus erinaceus
- Dianthus freynii
- Dianthus fruticosus
- Dianthus furcatus
- Dianthus gallicus - French Pink or Jersey Pink
- Dianthus giganteus
- Dianthus glacialis
- Dianthus gracilis
- Dianthus graniticus
- Dianthus gratianopolitanus - Cheddar Pink
- Dianthus haematocalyx
- Dianthus knappii
- Dianthus microlepsis
- Dianthus monspessulanus
- Dianthus myrtinervius
- Dianthus nardiformis
- Dianthus nitidus
- Dianthus pavonius
- Dianthus petraeus
- Dianthus pinifolius
- Dianthus plumarius - Wild Pink
- Dianthus pungens
- Dianthus repens - Boreal Carnation
- Dianthus scardicus
- Dianthus seguieri
- Dianthus simulans
- Dianthus spiculifolius
- Dianthus squarrosus
- Dianthus subacaulis
- Dianthus superbus - Large Pink
- Dianthus sylvestris
- Dianthus zonatus
The colour pink is named after the flower; the origin of the flower name 'pink' is unknown*, suggestions that it is connected with the frilled edge of the flowers as though cut with pinking shears is uncertain.
- Actually, there are many theories. The below is taken from World Wide Words (www.worldwidewords.org) compiled by Michael Quinion.
The word pink is generally agreed to be derived from the similar Dutch word pinck. However, there are two theories about which sense of the Dutch word was involved, and how it became applied to the colour. One is that it came from pinck in the sense of “small” (which turns up in the modern English word pinky for “little finger”), through the expression pinck oogen “small eyes”—that is, “half-closed eyes”—and that this was borrowed into English and applied to the flowers of the common English cottage-garden species Dianthus plumarius, which has been called a pink since the seventeenth century. The other theory says it came from pinck in the sense of “hole” (which is the origin of pinking shears, the device used to make ornamental holes in cloth) and was applied to the flowers of Dianthus because they resembled the shape of the holes. Either way, the colour comes from the plant, not the other way round.
The point I'm trying to make is that the colour is NOT so named because the flowers are mainly pink (they aren't), unlike 'orange' which is named after the fruit (it's a French corruption of a Sanskrit word).da:Nellike (Dianthus) de:Nelken fr:Œillet it:Dianthus ms:Bunga teluki nl:Anjer ja:カーネーション nn:Nellik