ITS PROSERPINA. 



Yesterday, after finishing my list, I went out again to ex- 

 amine Viola Cornuta a little closer, and pulled up a full grip 

 of it by the roots, and put it in water in a wash-hand basin, 

 which it filled like a truss of green hay. 



Pulling out two or three separate plants, I find each to con- 

 sist mainly of a jointed stalk of a kind I have not yet de- 

 scribed, roughly, some two feet long altogether ; (accurate- 

 ly, one 1 ft. 10 in. ; another, 1 ft. 10 in. ; another, 1 ft. 9 in. 

 but all these measures taken without straightening, and 

 therefore about an inch short of the truth), and divided into 

 seven or eight lengths by clumsy joints where the mangled 

 leafage is knotted on it ; but broken a little out of the way at 

 each joint, like a rheumatic elbow that won't come straight, 

 or bend farther ; and which is the most curious point of all 

 in it it is thickest in the middle, like a viper, and gets quite 

 thin to the root and thin towards the flower ; also the lengths 

 between the joints are longest in the middle : here I give 

 them in inches, from the root upwards, in a stalk taken at 

 random. 



1st (nearest root) .... Of 



2nd Of 



3rd ........ H 



4th If 



5th 3 



6th 4 



7th 3J 



8th 3 



9th 2J 



10th ...... 1 



1 ft. 9f in. 



But the thickness of the joints and length of terminal flower 

 stalk bring the total to two feet and about an inch over. I 

 dare not pull it straight, or should break it, but it overlaps 

 my two-foot rule considerably, and there are two inches be- 

 sides of root, which are merely underground stem, very thin 

 and wretched, as the rest of it is merely root above ground, 



