VIOLA SAGITTATA. 



ARROW- LEAVED VIOLET. 



NATURAL ORDER, VIOLACE^E. 



Viola sagittata, Alton. — Smoothish or hairy ; leaves on short and margined, or the later 

 often on long and naked petioles, varying from oblong heart-shaped to halberd-shaped, 

 arrow-shaped, oblong-lanceolate or ovate, denticulate, sometimes cut-toothed near the 

 base; the lateral, or occasionally all the (pretty large purple-blue) petals bearded ; spur 

 short and thick ; stigma beaked. (Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern I 'nitcd 

 States. See also Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States, and Wood's Class-Booh 

 of Botany.) 



IOLETS have always been associated with our ideas of 

 early spring. There is scarcely a poet who thinks of 

 spring but refers to the Violets in connection therewith. Says 

 Mrs. Southey : — 



" Spring, summer, autumn ! Of all three, 

 Whose reign is loveliest there ? 

 Oh ! is not she who paints the ground, 

 When its frost fetters are unbound, 

 The fairest of the fair ? 



" I gaze upon her violet beds, 



Laburnums golden-tress'd, 

 Her flower-spiked almonds ; breathe perfume 

 From lilac and syringa bloom, 



And cry, ' I love spring best ! ' " 



Shakespeare, in making the Duchess of Gloster congratulate 

 her son Aumerle on his being created Duke of Rutland, puts 

 these words into her mouth : — 



" Welcome, my son ! Who are the violets now 

 That strew the green lap of the new-come spring ? " 



