60 VIOLACE.E. 



years as a d^varf bedding plant, and most conflicting reports 

 have been made regarding it. When it is successful, there 

 can be but one opinion as to its merits. It is very beautiful, 

 but it is successful as a massing or edging plant only in moist 

 soil and seasons. There are several varieties of greater or less 

 pretensions for being improvements on the normal form, but 

 chiefly marked by difl"erent shades of the purplish colour of the 

 original. The best that has appeared is the one named " Per- 

 fection," a very distinct and handsome plant with large Pansy- 

 like flowers of a bright purplish-blue, yellow-eyed, and more 

 strongly fragrant than the reputed parent ; but it has so little 

 in common with coi'mda beyond the ho'ii^ that there are 

 grounds for questioning the alleged parentage. It is as unlike 

 cornuta in its power of resistance of drought as in most other 

 particulars. During this excessively droughty season (1870) 

 it has looked fresh and bloomed profusely, while cornuta has 

 been "done brown" for weeks. Cornuta is a native of the 

 Pyrenees. 



V. lutea ( Yelloza Moimtain- Violet). — This is another unsuc- 

 cessful candidate for parterre honours of recent introduction. 

 It is a native of mountain-pastures in Wales and the north of 

 England and west of Scotland. It grows in rather a straggling 

 manner, rising 3 or 4 inches high, with weak stems and small 

 oblong egg-shaped leaves. The flowers are bright yellow, with 

 a few black lines radiating from the centre on the lower petals. 

 Although it succeeds better in the majority of dry soils and 

 aspects than V. cornuta^ yet it is not so floriferous as that 

 species, and has disappointed many in the expectations raised 

 regarding its adaptability to summer bedding-out when first 

 introduced for that purpose. It is a pretty little gem, creeping 

 over rockwork, or in the front line of a partially-shaded moist 

 mixed border; but in bright blazing parterres it is eclipsed, 

 and very often burnt up, and does not supply efl'ectively the 

 much -desiderated dwarf bright yellow edging plant. The 

 variety grandiflora has, as its name implies, larger flowers than 

 the ordinary form, and is somewhat of an improvement also in 

 the matter of habit, being slightly more vigorous. Flowers 

 continuously from May till September. 



V. odorata (Sweet- Violet). — It would be superfluous to de- 

 scribe this universally known and cherished plant. In one or 

 more of its varieties it is to be seen in every garden, large or 

 small ; all love it — and well they may — for its modest beauty 

 and sweetness are unrivalled. The immense demand for it 

 about the large cities, such as London, Manchester, and Liver- 

 pool, throughout the spring, has rendered its culture a profit- 



