VIOLA. 



after the fashion of V. pedata. Here and there on the stony slopes of 

 the high ranges, in the screes and often under the fringe of a mountain 

 pine, may bo seen springing among the stones that most delicate 

 clump of smooth and very finely gashed and bird-clawed foliage. 

 It is yet more rarely seen, too, than it need bo, for V. pinnata is a shy, 

 elusive nymph, hurrying up to life immediately the snows are gone 

 or going, hastily throwing up, on stems of 2 or 3 inches, her little 

 intensely sweet violets of rosy lilac, pale lavender, or white ; and then, 

 by June, having borne and ripened even her inconspicuous tiny 

 utility-flowers, she is gone to rest again, invisible in the heart of the 

 stone-slope. In the garden nothing will usually serve her for long 

 but sandy and rich moraine-mixture in a rather shady aspect, and 

 copiously watered from below when the violet is beginning to expect 

 the mountain to be cool and moist about her feet ; there is little ques- 

 tion of multiplying this rare and dainty elf, no sooner come than passed 

 again ; who is as capricious and full of airs and fads as the incom- 

 parably more brilliant and beautiful V. pedata, towards which, indeed, 

 she seems to have aspirations, as we may now see. For, — 



V. p. cliaerophylloeides in the mountain woods of Japan makes a 

 far jump from the meek inconspicuous grace of its type, towards the 

 regal splendour of V. pedata. For it is much larger and firmer in 

 habit, much nearer to V. pedata than to V. pinnata, and its few flowers 

 are much larger, of a hot, translucent, amethystine lilac. When the 

 sun goes down on the mountains, and sends his last slanting beams in 

 ruddy scarlet among the saecular columns of the Cryptomerias above 

 the Tombs of the Regents, the whole air is filled with beams of red 

 fire and powdered gold, kindling the young scant foliage of the under- 

 growth to a dappled nicker of green flame ; the bending buds of the 

 lilies glow like ghostly jade, the arched sprays of Kerria carry ranks of 

 dazzling suns, and here and there on the rich brown earth the little 

 Crowfoot Violet gleams and burns as if enchanted into the very likeness 

 of a living amethyst with a heart of fire. Unfortunately the plant 

 seems to have all the mifnness of the type, besides being dishearten- 

 ingly difficult to import alive. 



V. poetica waits for her master's inspiration on the high-alpine 

 slopes of Parnassus. This is a most lovely and dainty small mountain 

 Pansy of noble purple on stems of an inch or two, close in the relation- 

 ship of V. crassi folia, and so coming into the family of Mammola 

 rupina. It makes clumps of quite minute, almost bald and floshy 

 little rounded leaves on rather long foot-stalks, and the rich, blue- 

 purple pansies have a thick spur, and are taller on their stems than 

 thoso of tiny V. crassifolia, although they are not quite so large. 



461 



