SWEET-SCENTED VIOLET. 



ductions, and suggestions, and improvements in their life-time ; 

 or, if otherwise, the recognition of their deserts has been too 

 late to be of service to them. In these respects many plants 

 have shared the lot of many men, and their value has long 

 escaped the notice of those who were capable of appreciating 

 them. Thus our plant, notwithstanding its agreeable fra- 

 grance, had for a long time grown at the foot of Mount Pila 

 unknown. There it would have continued, doubtless, " to 

 waste its sweets upon the desert air," if M. Villau, of Grenoble, 

 had not discovered its good qualities. That botanist sang the 

 praises of this humble flower ; he gave it a distinguished 

 position in his writings ; and, from that time, it has been 

 valued as an early blooming and fragrant flower, so that that 

 degree of justice has been accorded to it which it deserves. 



SWEET-SCENTED VIOLET {Viola odoratd).—WoY)Y.^TN. 



Little need be said to increase the universal admiration 

 of this favourite flower, for there is not one more sought after 

 than it, nor does any yield us greater pleasure when found in 

 the early Spring. We admire the embossed leaves, the 

 drooping purple flower, and are enchanted with its de- 

 licious fragrance. Then, as we roam through rustic lanes, 

 or by the hedgerovv', or the border of a wood, how pleasant it 

 is to find that 



" Where the banks are wet with drops of morning dew, 

 The gentle Violet steals out, in hood of blue ; " — TAYLOR. 



or to see it when 



195 



