92 



FLOWERS. 



Chap. X. 



man, energetically commenced their culture ; and in the course of 

 a few years twenty varieties could be purchased. 183 At about the 

 same period, namely in 1813 or 1814, Lord Gambier collected some 

 wild plants, and his gardener, Mr. Thomson, cultivated them, 

 together with some common garden varieties, and soon effected a 

 great improvement. The first great change was the conversion of 

 the dark lines in the centre of the flower into a dark eye or centre, 

 which at that period had never been seen, but is now considered 

 one of the chief requisites of a first-rate flower. In 1835 a book 

 entirely devoted to this flower was published, and four hundred 

 named varieties were on sale. From these circumstances this plant 

 seemed to me worth studying, more especially from the great 

 contrast between the small, dull, elongated, irregular flowers of the 

 wild pansy, and the beautiful, flat, symmetrical, circular, velvet- 

 like flowers, more than tw r o inches in diameter, magnificently and 

 variously coloured, which are exhibited at our shows. But when I 

 came to enquire more closely, I found that, though the varieties 

 were so modern, yet that much confusion and doubt prevailed 

 about their parentage. Florists believe that the varieties 184 are 

 descended from several wild stocks, namely, V. tricolor, lutea, 

 (j andiflora, amocna, and altaica, more or less intercrossed. And 

 when I looked to botanical works to ascertain whether these forms 

 ought to be ranked as species, I found equal doubt and confusion. 

 Viola altaica seems to be a distinct form, but what part it has played 

 in the origin of our varieties I know not ; it is said to have been 

 crossed with V. lutea. Viola amcena 185 is now looked at by all 

 botanists as a natural variety of V. (jrandiflora ; and this and V. 

 sudetica have been proved to be identical with V. luUa. The latter 

 and V. tricolor (including its admitted variety V. arwiisis) are 

 ranked as distinct species by Babington, and likewise by M. Gay, ls,i 

 who has paid particular attention to the genus; but the specific 

 distinction between V. lutta and tricolor is chiefly grounded on the 

 one being strictly and the other not strictly perennial, as well as on 

 some other slight and unimportant differences in the form of the 

 stem and stipules. Bentham unites these two forms ; and a high 

 authority on such matters, Mr. H. C. Watson, 187 says that, " while 

 V. tricolor passes into V. arvensis on the one side, it approximates 

 so much towards V. lutea and V. Curtisii on the other side, that a 

 distinction becomes scarcely more easy between them." 



Hence, after having carefully compared numerous varieties, I 



183 Loudon's ' Gardener's Magazine.' 

 vol. xi. 1855. p. 427 ; also ' Journal 

 of Horticulture,' April 14, 1863, p. 

 275. , 



184 Loudon's ' Gardener's Magazine,' 

 vol. viii. p. 575 : vol. ix. p. 689. 



185 Sir J. E. Smith, ' English Flora,' 

 vol. i. p. 306. H. C. Watson, ' Cybele 

 Britannica,' vol. i. 1847, p. 181. 



186 Quoted from 'Annales des Sci- 

 ences,' in the Companion to the ' Bot. 

 Mag.,' vol. i. 1835, p. 159. 



187 ' Cybele Britannica,' vol. i. p. 

 173. See also Dr. Herbert on the 

 changes of colour in transplanted spe- 

 cimens, and on the natural variations 

 of V. grandifiora, in ' Transact. Hort 

 Soc' vol. iv, p. 19. 



