Proserpina, Volume 2 | Page 6

hapless scientific people, in such their tentative Latin:--
(1) Viola Arvensis. Field (Violet) No. 1748
(2) " Biflora. Two-flowered 46
(3) " Canina. Dog 1453
(3b) " Canina. Var. Multicaulus 2646 (many-stemmed), a very singular sort of violet--if it were so! Its real difference from our dog-violet is in being pale blue, and having a golden centre
(4) " Hirta. Hairy 618
(5) " Mirabilis. Marvellous 1045
(6) " Montana. Mountain 1329
(7) " Odorata. Odorous 309
(8) " Palustris. Marshy 83
(9) " Tricolor. Three-coloured 623
(9B) " Tricolor. Var. Arenaria, Sandy 2647 Three-coloured
(10) " Elatior. Taller 68
(11) " Epipsila. (Heaven knows what: it is 2405 Greek, not Latin, and looks as if it meant something between a bishop and a short letter e)
I next run down this list, noting what names we can keep, and what we can't; and what aren't worth keeping, if we could: passing over the varieties, however, for the present, wholly.
(1) Arvensis. Field-violet. Good.
(2) Biflora. A good epithet, but in false Latin. It is to be our Viola aurea, golden pansy.
(3) Canina. Dog. Not pretty, but intelligible, and by common use now classical. Must stay.
(4) Hirta. Late Latin slang for hirsuta, and always used of nasty places or nasty people; it shall not stay. The species shall be our Viola Seclusa,--Monk's violet--meaning the kind of monk who leads a rough life like Elijah's, or the Baptist's, or Esau's--in another kind. This violet is one of the loveliest that grows.
(5) Mirabilis. Stays so; marvellous enough, truly: not more so than all violets; but I am very glad to hear of scientific people capable of admiring anything.
(6) Montana. Stays so.
(7) Odorata. Not distinctive;--nearly classical, however. It is to be our Viola Regina, else I should not have altered it.
(8) Palustris. Stays so.
(9) Tricolor. True, but intolerable. The flower is the queen of the true pansies: to be our Viola Psyche.
(10) Elatior. Only a variety of our already accepted Cornuta.
(11) The last is, I believe, also only a variety of Palustris. Its leaves, I am informed in the text, are either "pubescent-reticulate-venose- subreniform," or "lato-cordate-repando-crenate;" and its stipules are "ovate-acuminate-fimbrio-denticulate." I do not wish to pursue the inquiry farther.
24. These ten species will include, noting here and there a local variety, all the forms which are familiar to us in Northern Europe, except only two;--these, as it singularly chances, being the Viola Alpium, noblest of all the wild pansies in the world, so far as I have seen or heard of them,--of which, consequently, I find no picture, nor notice, in any botanical work whatsoever; and the other, the rock-violet of our own Yorkshire hills.
We have therefore, ourselves, finally then, twelve following species to study. I give them now all in their accepted names and proper order,--the reasons for occasional difference between the Latin and English name will be presently given.
(1) Viola Regina. Queen violet.
(2) " Psyche. Ophelia's pansy.
(3) " Alpium. Freneli's pansy.
(4) " Aurea. Golden violet.
(5) " Montana. Mountain Violet.
(6) " Mirabilis. Marvellous violet.
(7) " Arvensis. Field violet.
(8) " Palustris. Marsh violet.
(9) " Seclusa. Monk's violet.
(10) " Canina. Dog violet.
(11) " Cornuta. Cow violet.
(12) " Rupestris. Crag violet.
25. We will try, presently, what is to be found out of useful, or pretty, concerning all these twelve violets; but must first find out how we are to know which are violets indeed, and which, pansies.
Yesterday, after finishing my list, I went out again to examine Viola Cornuta a little closer, and pulled up a full grip of it by the roots, and put it in water in a wash-hand basin, which it filled like a truss of green hay.
Pulling out two or three separate plants, I find each to consist mainly of a jointed stalk of a kind I have not yet described,--roughly, some two feet long altogether; (accurately, one 1 ft. 10? in.; another, 1 ft. 10 in.; another, 1 ft. 9 in.--but all these measures taken without straightening, and therefore about an inch short of the truth), and divided into seven or eight lengths by clumsy joints where the mangled leafage is knotted on it; but broken a little out of the way at each joint, like a rheumatic elbow that won't come straight, or bend farther; and--which is the most curious point of all in it--it is thickest in the middle, like a viper, and gets quite thin to the root and thin towards the flower; also the lengths between the joints are longest in the middle: here I give them in inches, from the root upwards, in a stalk taken at random.
1st (nearest root) 0?
2nd 0?
3rd 1?
4th 1?
5th 3
6th 4
7th 3?
8th 3
9th 2?
10th 1?
1 ft. 9? in.
But the thickness of the joints and length of terminal flower stalk bring the total to two feet and about an inch over. I dare not pull it straight, or should break it, but it overlaps my two-foot