RED CAMPION 21 
The Violet was dedicated to Venus. 
In Greece violets were worn in the chaplet because it was imagined 
they dispelled the fumes of wine and drove away headaches. Its sweet 
scent is employed in perfumery. The petals are used in syrup given 
to children. It had many fanciful qualities in mediaeval times. Thus, 
“stamped with water it casts out a broken bone ”. 
The root is emetic, being employed as a substitute for ipecacuanha. 
The syrup is used by chemists as a test for acids or alkalies, being 
cultivated at Stratford-on-Avon for that purpose. The Violet is 
laxative. Sherbet is supposed to have violet syrup as one of its 
constituents. The Koran praises it, holding it, like the Prophet high 
over men, superior to all other flowers. When dried the flowers are 
used in bonbons, being candied. The seeds are diuretic, and pow- 
dered were used for gravel and stone. 
The species is cultivated, and white and blue forms are equally 
sweet-scented, while both single and double forms are produced. 
This plant was used as a beautifier to render the eye lustrous, 
enlarging the pupil. The Grecian women colour their eyelids blue 
with it, and make a preparation of it for the eyes. 
The Violet is a humus-loving plant requiring a humus soil, which 
is obtained in woods and under hedge banks. It grows on a variety 
of subsoils formed by different geological formations, both arenaceous 
and oolitic. 
EsseNTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS :— 
42. Viola odorata, L.—Stem with stoles from axils of terminal 
rosettes, creeping, leaves cordate, crenate, downy, flowers blue or 
white, scented, spur straight, lance-shaped sepals obtuse, bracts above 
middle of peduncles. 
Red Campion (Lychnis dioica, L.) 
This plant has been found in Interglacial, late Glacial, Neolithic, 
and lacustrine deposits. To-day it is found in the Temperate and 
Arctic Zones in Arctic Europe to the Caucasus, Siberia up to Lake 
Baikal, and Greenland. It is found in every part of Great Britain, 
except Hunts, Stirling, Main Argyll, and Caithness. 
In most of our English counties we look for the Red Campion in 
early spring, with its pink blooms, springing up from the moist soil of 
ditch or hedge bank. But there are in some districts wide areas where 
it is entirely absent, and these same districts also lack its usual 
associates elsewhere—Dog's Mercury, and Lords-and-Ladies or 
