From Blue to Purple 



The Woolly Blue Violet (K sororia), whose stems and 

 younger leaves, at least, are covered with hairs, and whose pur- 

 plish-blue flowers are more or less bearded within, prefers a shady 

 but dry situation ; whereas its next of kin, the Arrow-leaved Violet 

 (K. sagittata), delights in moist but open meadows and marshes. 

 The hitter's long, arrow, or halbert-shaped leaves, usually entire 

 above the middle, but slightly lobed below it, may rear themselves 

 nine inches high in favorable soil, or in dry uplands perhaps only 

 two inches. The flowering scapes grow as tall as the leaves. All 

 but the lower petal of the large, deep, dark, purplish-blue flower 

 are bearded. This species produces an abundance of late cleis- 

 togamous flowers on erect stems. These peculiar greenish 

 flowers without petals, that are so often mistaken for buds or seed 

 vessels; that never open, but without insect aid ripen quantities of 

 fertile seed, are usually borne, if not actually under ground, then 

 not far above it, on nearly all violet plants. It will be observed 

 that all species which bear blind flowers rely somewhat on showy, 

 cross-fertilized blossoms also to counteract degeneracy from close 

 inbreeding. 



The Ovate-leaved Violet (K. ovata), formerly reckoned as a 

 mere variety of the former species, is now accorded a distinct rank. 

 Not all the blossoms, but an occasional clump, has a faint perfume 

 like sweet clover. The leaf is elongated, but rather too round 

 to be halbert-shaped ; the stems are hairy ; and the flowers, which 

 closely resemble those of the arrow-leaved violet, are earlier ; 

 making these two species, which are popularly mistaken for one, 

 among the earliest and commonest of their clan. The dry soil of 

 upland woods and thickets is the ovate-leaved violet's preferred 

 habitat. 



In course of time the lovely English, March, or Sweet Violet, 

 (K. odorata), which has escaped from gardens, and which is now 

 rapidly increasing with the help of seed and runners on the Atlantic 

 and the Pacific coasts, may be established among our wild flowers. 

 No blossom figures so prominently in European literature. In 

 France, it has even entered the political field since Napoleon's day. 

 Yale University has adopted the violet for its own especial flower, 

 although it is the corn-flower, or bachelor's button {Ceiitaurea 

 cyaniis) that is the true Yale blue. Sprengel, who made a most 

 elaborate study of the violet, condensed the result of his research 

 into the following questions and answers, which are given here 

 because much that he says applies to our own native species, 

 which have been too little studied in the modern scientific spirit : 



"I. Why is the flower situated on a long stalk which is up- 

 right, but curved downwards at the free end ? in order that it 

 may hang down ; which, firstlv, prevents rain from obtaining 



30 



