The southern Carnatic, when it came into the possession of the British, was occupied by military chieftains called poligars, who ruled over the country, and held lands by doubtful tenures. They were unquestionably a disorderly race; and the country, by their incessant feuds and plunderings, was one continued scene of strife and violence. Under British rule they were reduced to order, and their forts and military establishments were destroyed.
See [India]: History. For the various applications of the name Carnatic see the Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford, 1908), s.v.; for the results of the latest researches in the early history of the country see V.A. Smith, Early History of India (2nd ed., Oxford, 1908), and Robert Sewell, A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar), (London, 1900).
[1] As a geographical term, Carnatic is not now applied to the district north of Pennar.
[2] The Pallavas are supposed by some authorities to be identical with the Pahlavas (Parthians of Persia), who, with the Sakas and Yayanas, settled in western India about a.d. 100. Mr Vincent Smith, however, who in the 1st edition (1904) of his Early History of India maintained this view, says in the 2nd edition (1908, p. 423) that “recent research does not support this hypothesis,” and that “it seems more likely that the Pallavas were a tribe, clan or caste which was formed in the northern part of the existing Madras Presidency.” The evidence points to their having been a race distinct from the Tamils.
CARNATION (Dianthus Caryophyllus, natural order Caryophyllaceae), a garden flower, a native of southern Europe, but occasionally found in an apparently wild state in England. It has long been held in high estimation for the beauty and the delightful fragrance of its blossoms. The varieties are numerous, and are ranged under three groups, called bizarres, flakes and picotees. The last, from their distinctness of character, are now generally looked upon as if they were a different plant, whereas they are, in truth, but a seminal development from the carnation itself, their number and variety being entirely owing to the assiduous endeavours of the modern florist to vary and to improve them.
The true carnations, as distinguished from picotees, are those which have the colours arranged in longitudinal stripes or bars of variable width on each petal, the ground colour being white. The bizarres are those in which stripes of two distinct colours occur on the white ground, and it is on the purity of the white ground and the clearness and evenness of the striping that the technical merit of each variety rests. There are scarlet bizarres marked with scarlet and maroon, crimson bizarres marked with crimson and purple, and pink and purple bizarres marked with those two colours. The flakes have stripes of only one colour on the white ground; purple flakes are striped with purple, scarlet flakes with scarlet, and rose flakes with rose colour. The selfs, those showing one colour only, as white, yellow, crimson, purple, &c., are commonly called cloves.
The picotee has the petals laced instead of striped with a distinct colour; the subgroups are red-edged, purple-edged, rose-edged and scarlet-edged, all having white grounds; each group divides into two sections, the heavy-edged and the light-edged. In the heavy-edged the colour appears to be laid on in little touches, passing from the edge inwards, but so closely that they coalesce into one line of colour from 1⁄12 to 1⁄16 of an inch broad, and more or less feathered on the inner edge, the less feathered the better; the light-edged display only a fine edge, or “wire” edge, of colour on the white ground. Yellow picotees are a group of great beauty, but deficient in correct marking.
During the decade 1898-1908 a new American race of carnations became very popular with British growers. As the plants flower chiefly during the winter—from October till the end of March—they are known as “winter flowering” or “perpetual”; they are remarkable for the charming delicacy and colouring of the blossoms and for the length of the flower-stalks. This enables them to be used with great effect during the dullest months of the year for all kinds of floral decorations. These varieties are propagated by layers or cuttings or “pipings.”