VIOLA. 



Bend out woll-rooted specimens is almost as rare as tho Violot itself ; but 

 then, in tho underground-watered moraine, or specially stony and well- 

 drained peaty slope, it will grow ahead with a neat heartiness the more 

 embarrassing that it seems as if the plant considered this was grace 

 sufficient, without tho added courtesy of putting forth a flower. No 

 doubt, like so many of its equals on tho high hills, it wants an absolute 

 resting season of drought in winter to ripen it for an adequate display 

 of bloom in summer. And never, I think, will it show quito the 

 condensed, dark, glossy mass of tight tiny leaves covered with quite 

 that condensed crowd of serene and cheery countenances, which make 

 such a bewildering patch of beauty on the high moors and in tho 

 rocky-silty slopes of tho Col do Pra in early Juno, when there is yet 

 no sign of life over the sere dead moorland, but the dawning steam 

 of sweetness from Trifolium alpinum arising in the nipping clear snow- 

 air, and the pale coerulean jewel-work and gentle mosaics of the Viola 

 lying here and there in slabs of pure colour amid tho brown barrenness 

 of a world yet hardly stirring from its sleep. 



V. Nuttallii is one of the finest yellow -flowered violets. In the 

 prairies of the Northern States it throws abroad its leafy branches set 

 with oblong narrow foliage, almost toothless, and tapering downwards 

 to the leaf-stalk, along which a flap of leaf continues on either side. 

 The flowers are of bright yellow, often richly purple on the reverse. 



V. ocellata is a particularly brightly-painted form or cousin of V. 

 canadensis, making a noble clump of oroct stems above the leaves in 

 California, 6 inches or a foot high, bearing large violets nearly white, 

 with the two upper petals bright purple on the reverse, while the rest 

 are lilac-white or creamy, veined with violet, and with a pencilling of 

 violet beard. It is as beautiful as V. Rydbergi. 



V. odontocahjeina bears a close resemblance to V. cenisia, but its 

 spur is shorter, and it forms close tufts of huddled and overlapping 

 little fleshy foliage of grey velvet, blunt and toothless at the odge, 

 omitting big pansies of clear blue-purple with a thick, blunt spur, 

 that light up the high stony places in the Alps of Armenia. 



V. odontophora has no merit to pino for. 



V. odorata is tho Sweet Violet, of which no more need be said. 

 Thero are countless varieties, but in particular, for the rock-garden 

 (the rost are too stout and rampant, as a rule, or too florist-fed in 

 fatness) there is the pretty, small-flowered, yollow variety, which is, 

 indeed, most lushly and largely leafy for its blossoms, yet produces 

 them in such profusion as to make it worthy of admittance to some 

 not specially valued, shadyish comer in rich soil. It may be offered 

 as V. sulfur ea or as V. Vilmoriniana. 



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