26 WILD FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND 



summer friends of these spring flowers, heartsease 

 scatters over the drier turf. On climbing the 

 dykes into the grain field, it grows a long stem, at 

 the expense of the blossom. There is some reason 

 to suppose that the climbing has been the other 

 way. Introduced with the grain, it may have 

 crossed to the meadows, where it shortened its 

 stalk, to the benefit of the flower. 



Does heartsease climb the mountains, away 

 beyond the utmost limit of the dog violet ? Does 

 it there drop white and blue all its shades save 

 one and become the yellow mountain violet ? 

 If I am justified in linking the three-hued violet 

 of the plain with the one-hued mountain violet, 

 across the gap between where neither grows, then 

 the heartsease may be a native after all : may have 

 come down the slopes, and not over the dyke. The 

 ascent, if such there was, must be pretty far back. 



Still another violet haunts the marshes : not 

 simply wet places, but genuine old bogs, which 

 have never been reclaimed, and whose date must 

 be primeval. 



It recalls ankle-deep wading through mossy 

 and peaty stretches, with frequent quickening of 

 the motion, and jumps, lest the sinking should be 

 inconveniently deep. 



