FLORA AND THALIA. 133 



VIOLET PANSY, OR THREE-COLOUR- 

 ED VIOLET. 



( Viola tricolor.). 



This plant grows wild in corn fields, waste, and 

 cultivated grounds ; flowering all the summer, it 

 varies much by culture, and, from the variety of its 

 colours, often becomes extremely beautiful in our 

 gardens. 



There are now twenty different coloured violets, 

 or heartsease, cultivated by our florists. 



This flower, the universal favourite of the more 

 simple unrefined ages, is one of those in which, when 

 we compare the diminutive and almost colourless 

 pansy, which we find wild among the corn, with the 

 ample rich-coloured corolla and its tissue of velvet, 

 as is now common in many gardens, we cannot but 

 allow that human art has made a considerable im- 

 provement; and we survey it with more pleasure, 

 because it is not at the expense of the natural cha- 

 racters of the flower. § 



This violet has numerous provincial names, all 

 bearing some allusion to love ; perhaps the most uni- 

 versal is that of heartsease. 



Class, Pentaxdria. Order, Monogtnia. 



