=CARDINAL-FLOWER.=--Of the extensive _Lobelia_ family the _L. Cardinalis_, or Cardinal’s Flower, is, perhaps, the most beautiful. Its blossoms are of so brilliant a scarlet, as to have reminded the originator of its name of the scarlet cloth of Rome, while its shape is not altogether dissimilar to the hat of the Romish dignitary. Alphonse Karr, remarking on the vivid hue of the Cardinal’s Flower, says that even the Verbena will pale before it. =CARLINE THISTLE.=--The white and red Carline Thistles (_Carlina vulgaris_) derive their name from Charlemagne, regarding whom the legend relates that once--“a horrible pestilence broke out in his army, and carried off many thousand men, which greatly troubled the pious Emperor. Wherefore, he prayed earnestly to God; and in his sleep there appeared to him an angel, who shot an arrow from the cross-bow, telling him to mark the plant upon which it fell, for that with that plant he might cure his army of the pestilence. And so it really happened.” The plant upon which the arrow alighted was the Carline Thistle, and, as Gerarde tells us, Charlemagne’s army was, through the benefit of the root delivered and preserved from the plague.--The Carline Thistle is under the dominion of Mars. =CARNATION.=--The Carnation (_Dianthus caryophyllus_) is generally supposed to have obtained its name from the flesh-colour of its flowers; but it was more correctly spelt by old writers, Coronation, as representing the _Vetonica coronaria_ of the early herbalists, and so called from its flowers being used in the classic _coronæ_ or chaplets. Thus Spenser, in his ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’ says: “Bring Coronations and Sops-in-wine, worn of paramours.” From Chaucer we learn that the flower was formerly called the Clove Gilliflower, and that it was cultivated in English gardens in Edward the Third’s reign. In those days, it was used to give a spicy flavour to wine and ale, and from hence obtained its name of Sop-in-wine:-- “Her springen herbes, grete and smale, The Licoris and the Setewales, And many a Clove Gilofre, --------to put in ale, Whether it be moist or stale.”