CHAPTER I 

 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PANSY 



" A little Western flower 

 Before milk-white ; now purple with love's wound." 



THE development of the present magnificent strains of 

 Pansies from the wildlings of nature has taken nearly one 

 hundred years. Writers at the end of the eighteenth century 

 have left on record that the Pansies cultivated in gardens at 

 that time were little better than varieties of Viola tricolor to 

 be found growing wild. In addition to the written records, 

 there also exist some coloured illustrations of that period, 

 confirming what is said by the writers. 



In the year 1813 or 1814 Lord Gambier, who had a 

 residence at Iver near Uxbridge, Middlesex, collected a few 

 plants of Viola tricolor and brought them to his gardener, 

 instructing him at the same time to cultivate them in the 

 garden. The gardener's name was Thompson, and he stated, 

 in a communication which appeared in The Flower Gar- 

 deners 9 Library and Floricultural Cabinet for 1841, that the 

 plants which his master brought to him twenty-seven or 

 twenty-eight years previously were " roots of the common 



