208 TETRADYNAMIA--SILIQUOSA. Hesperis. 



Viola matronalis. Dod. PemptA6\.f. Ger. Em. 462. f. Lob. Ic. 



323./. 

 V. purpurea. Fuchs. Hist. 459./. 



In hilly pastures, especially near rivulets, but rare. 



On the banks of the rivulets about Dale-head, Cumberland, and 

 Grassmere, Westmoreland ; Mr. Nicolson. Dillenius. About 

 Falmouth. Withering. Near Cheltenham, on Cotswould ridge. 

 General Hardwicke. From which neighbourhood it was sent by 

 the late Earl of Dartmouth, to Mr. Sowerby. See Engl. Bot. 

 Near the old castle of Airly, Angus-shire. Mr. J. Mackay and 

 Mr. G. Don. 



Perennial. May, June. 



Root tufted, of many long fibres. Stems erect, 2 or 3 feet high, 

 slightly branched, leafy, round, solid, clothed, more or less co- 

 piously, with very short, deflexed, simple or forked, minute 

 hairs. Leaves scattered, ovate-lanceolate, or slightly heart- 

 shaped, taper-pointed, veiny, single-ribbed, bordered with nu- 

 merous, unequal, prominent, obtuse, somewhat glandular teeth ; 

 all nearly or quite sessile, except some of the lowermost. Fl. 

 terminal, corymbose, numerous, rather large and handsome, 

 pale purple, or white, perpetually varying from seed in this re- 

 spect 5 by day they have little or no smell, except in rainy wea- 

 ther, but'in an evening they are highly and delightfully fragrant. 

 Cal tinged with purple, rough with coarse spreading hairs, es- 

 pecially in the upper part ; seldom quite naked. Pet. abrupt, 

 wavy, notched, sometimes having a small terminal tooth. Pod 

 2 inches long, ascendmg, or erect, a little curved, acute, of a 

 slender cylindrical form, usually quite smooth, with 4 simple, 

 not bordered, angles, whose somewhat striated interstices are 

 equal, except the very irregular swellings and undulations 

 caused by the numerous' seeds, which are elliptical, concave at 

 one side, destitute of a border. 



Few British plants have been enveloped in more uncertainty than 

 this, owing to the epithet inodora, which, as botanists generally 

 hunt by daylight, was found applicable to our wild Hesperis ; 

 while the well-known rich nocturnal fragrance of the garden 

 plant, dedicated in its name, for ihat very reason, to the even- 

 ing star, was supposed to render the latter specifically distinct. 

 This opinion was confirmed in the mind of Linnaeus by a speci- 

 men from Jacquin, marked Hesperis tertia Clusii, in which the 

 lower teeth of the rather softer leaves ?iXQ peculiarly dilated, as in 

 Jacquin's plate above indicated. Hence Linnaeus, giving credit 

 to the w^ant of scent, plumed himself on establishing a specific 

 difference. But the characters he gives have all long been found 

 illusive, and Mr. Brown has justly, in my opinion, united these 

 two Linnaean species, without marking either as even a variety. 

 We therefore retain the original, and least exceptionable, spe- 

 cific name. 



