VIOLA. 



granite. On the seaward side of the range it is especially profuse, 

 always to be seen prospering in open stony places of the hot slopes, 

 anywhere a little above the level of Saint Martin Vesubio, and 

 ascending as high as Our Lady of the Window, where its tuffets 

 are peculiarly neat and well-furnished. It never attempts the lime- 

 stone, as it seems ; but on the upmost ridges above Saint Martin it 

 becomes so abounding that all the lighter grassy places are full of it, 

 and the arid hillside is made a shivering dance of its little pansies. 

 till, on the Col de Pra, going down into the solemn head of the Gordo - 

 lasca Valley, it is abundant in the open lawn itself, as if it were V. lutea 

 or V. calcarata. Yet its happiest homes are those in open, stony 

 ground, where it can have the whole place at the disposal of its tuffet. 

 V . vedderia is so generous in bloom as to bo no Methuselah in culti- 

 vation : albinocs also occur, yet are but sickly souls, with more than 

 the type's distaste for foreign travel. 



V. variegata is a 6-inch pallid violet of Siberia, standing near 

 V. dissecta, but with its foliage undissected. 



V. vallicola (V. physalodes, Gray) cultivates valleys in the Central 

 Rockies, where it loves the moister, cooler corners. It has a spreading 

 stock, from which it sends out a few stems of half a foot or less, with 

 larger goldon yellow violets than in V. Nuttcdlii, veined with purple, 

 each about half an inch across. 



V. vestita. See under V. cenisia. 



V. viarum is a North American of no outstanding charm for the 

 garden ; and in the same rather dim ruck come V. renifolia, V. lan- 

 ceolata, V. macroceras, V. imberbis, V. ovata, V. kamschatica (a twin 

 to V. Selkirkii, if not the same), V. incisa, and V. Gmelini, which has 

 good-sized violets, indeed, that make one hope there may yet be jewels 

 in this heap, though the sifting out of many such has already amply 

 stored this list with violets as well as pansies. Of these, again, V. tri- 

 color, the Annual Heartsease, gives us many forms and names, such as 

 V. bannatica, V. arvensis, V. segetum, V. Kitaibeli, V. hymettia, V. de- 

 metria : together with other and more worthless annuals yet, in 

 V. modesta, V. ebracteolata, V. occulta, V. parva, V. pentadactylis, &c. 



V. Vilmoriniana. See V. odorata. 



V. vivariensis, howevor, is a frail perennial Pansy, starry-faced 

 and of clear blue, with the lowor petals rayod with gold, standing out 

 from the plant on long, fine stems, in the counties of Drdrno and 

 Ardeohe. 



V. Wdtieri ( V. mulllcaulis, Britton) has the same brilliant purple 

 violets as V. labradorica (Schrank), first of all springing from the 

 central tuft, and then from the prostrate leafy stem. It lives in the 



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