VIOLA. 



V. olympica has a neat small habit in the way of V. rothomagensis, 

 differing from V. tricolor in being perennial, as well as in being a tidy 

 cushion of green, from which spring the purple and varied flowers of 

 the Heartsease, with the spur twice as long as in V. rothomagensis. 

 Its home is in the pine region of the Bithynian Olympus. 



V. oreocallis. — The Hill Beauty of North America is a pretty little 

 tufted violet, though hardly deserving such an invidious name. 



V. orphanidis makes leafy lush masses of softly, loosely silky leafage 

 sending up on weakly branches a succession of blossoms like those of 

 V. cornuta, but smaller and less brilliant, even as the habit is laxer 

 and more leafy. 



V. orthoceras has much the habit of the last and of V. cornuta, but 

 its blooms are twice the size, while its habit is more prostrate than 

 that of V. cornuta, flopping along for a foot or more, and sending up 

 large short-spurred pansies of yellow and purple, with wide and 

 spreading side-petals as in V. orphanidis and V. olympica, all being 

 species of Caucasus or Russian Armenia or Macedonia. 



V. pollens is a pale North American woodland violet that is often 

 called V. blanda by modern authors. 



V. palmata springs in spring from the rich, dry places of the Ameri- 

 can forest. Often the earlier leaves are ordinary and undivided, but 

 the mature ones are handsomely cut into some five or nine lobes, and 

 the big violets are often more than an inch across. 



V. palustris is common in flat bogs and marshy levels of England, 

 with ample, almost round, long-stemmed leaves, and tiny pale flowers 

 almost as round in outline as the leaves. It serves as the type of a 

 vast group ; e.g. V. nephrophylla {q.v.) is an improved cousin of this, 

 that sends out no runners, and so does not grow so rank. 



V. papilionacea also loves the moister places. But this is an 

 American, forming a stout clump of very broad, heart-shaped leaves, 

 amid which rise up violets of deep purple with a white eye. 



V. Patrinii ranges across Northern Asia to Japan. It is a dainty 

 little tufted violet, with quite narrow and saw-edged, oval leaves, 

 forming smooth and hairless clumps that never send out runners. 

 The dainty violets are usually of clear lavender blue, but the plant 

 is wildly variable. It ranges far down on the dusty plains of 

 China. 



V. pedata has always been a problem for the cultivator. Even in 

 its own States of America, if brought into the garden from the fields 

 or bank-sides where it abounds (as in the sandy levels of Long Island), 

 the clump soon mimps away in exile. In England it has occasioned 

 as much discussion and correspondence almost, as its beauty is worth. 



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