1863.] ON THE ODOURS OF PLANTS. 487 



Everybody knows the exquisite scent of a bean-field, when in 

 flower ; and the popularity of the Sweet Pea is partially due. to its 

 smell, and partly to the beauty of its blossom. 



Everybody knows the Violet by its powerful sweet smell ; and 

 it is about equally well known that the other Violets, viz. the 

 Hairy Violet, and the Dog Violet, are quite scentless. Is not this 

 the reason why the popular mind has applied the ungracious 

 name of ^dog' to the scentless Violet, as the same generally un- 

 erring authority has bestowed the title of Dog Mercury on the 

 unedible kind which grows in our woods and hedges ; Avhile the 

 eatable sort, which grows as a weed in our gardens and fields, is 

 dignified by the name of French Mercury? 



Some botanists of considerable reputation have conjectured 

 that the two Violets V. odorata and V. Mrta form but one 

 species. This has been shown by a Stratford correspondent of the 

 '^ Phytologist ' to be a groundless conjecture. I demur to the 

 doctrine of their specific identity, and assert that they are two 

 species under all circumstances and conditions whatever. 



I have long cultivated both plants taken from their natural 

 location, and though grown side by side they have hitherto re- 

 mained without change. The Hairy Violet has not yet selected 

 nor borrowed the exquisite scent of her near relation, nor has the 

 sweet-scented assumed the more elongated leaves of her less for- 

 tunate sister. They do not manifest any tendency to avail them- 

 selves of the Darwinian principle of natural selection. 



It is quite marvellous that the odour of plants and flowers has 

 never been taken advantage of as a means of determining the 

 specific distinction of closely allied species in these days of species- 

 splitting. I am quite at a loss to accouu^t for it. To me it ap- 

 pears that an odorous plant is as certainly known by its scent, 

 either good or bad, noxious or wholesome, as a tree is by its 

 fruit; cultivation may, and often does, produce luxuriance and 

 monstrosity, but seems incapable of exerting any influence on the 

 odours of plants, whether such odour be pleasant or repugnant. 



Several families have the unenviable notoriety of yielding plants 

 of fetid, poisonous odours. 



The Siapelids, a well-known genus of South African plants, 

 smell when in flower somewhat like excrementitious rejectamenta. 



The Chestnut-tree, when in blossom, has the smell of the he- 

 goat, a smell not gratifying to delicate noses. 



