VIOLA. 



paths, lest mules as good as any of these, or better, may there bo 

 turning up unboknownst, the range of hybridisation and fertility 

 being so incalculable in the family that attempts at affiliation soon 

 become vain. Nobody can tell the origin of one of the quaintest 

 things of all, called Bowles's Black. This is a little bushy plant of 

 Tricolor blood, with abundant small pansies of dense black-violet 

 velvet throughout the season, thriving anywhere, and sowing itself 

 freely, and incidentally hybridising again with any lutca-gracilis- 

 cornuta- or calcarata-cousin that may happen to be handy. All the 

 children of all the parents have their place, but they form too cloudy 

 and vast a race for constant naming, and are often so blurred from 

 the distinct beauties of their blood, that the utmost they can ask of 

 the gardener is not to root them up, unless they have sprung in a 

 place too precious and prominent. 



V. Corsica is a form of V. calcarata. 



V. crassifolia lives in the highest stone-slopes of the Lycian Alps. 

 It is a tiny tufted plant between the shingles, with microscopic littlo 

 fat oval leaves, perfectly smooth and toothless and glossy. The 

 purple pansies aro about half the size of V. cenisia's, and have a 

 shorter spur and narrower wing-petals than its even closer but 

 larger-pansied cousin, V. nevadensis. 



V. cretica comes in the way of V. palustris, with rounded leaves, 

 and rather small pale violets. 



V. cucullata makes ample handsome tufts of almost hairless pointed 

 great heart-shaped leaves, among which on tall stems spring a largo 

 number of largo handsome violets of clear rich blue deepening to the 

 throat and sometimes white, very round and solid in the petal, and 

 so most hearty and full of faco. It is a thriving New England species, 

 popular and widespread in cultivation. 



V. Cunninghamii need havo no hold on our longings. It is a 

 New Zealand species without special attraction. 



V. Cuxtisii is a false name for the biennial V. sabulosa from the 

 Channel dunes, a Tricolorous small pansy with the upper petals purple, 

 and the lower ones wedge-shaped and yellowing to their base. 



V. declinata=V. Dubyana, q.v. 



V. delphinantJia seems very difficult to grow, and not much fun 

 when grown, as it does not flower readily, nor give notable pleasure 

 when it does. It has all the look of a rather miserable Delphinium 

 as it arises on Athos and Olympus, with specially narrow leaves and 

 erect si cms. 



V. delphinifolia is a name for an American woodland violet with 

 divided leaves suggesting a Larkspur's. 



452 



