180 



PROSERPINA. 



flower passes into the other through all kinds of intermediate 

 positions of petal, and the plurality of species are of the mid- 

 dle type, Fig. n. B.* 



27. Next, if you will gather a real pansy leaf, you will find 

 it not heart-shape in the least, but sharp oval 

 or spear-shape, with two deep cloven lateral flakes 

 at its springing from the stalk, which, in ordinary 

 aspect, give the plant the haggled and draggled 

 look I have been vilifying it for. These, and 

 such as these, " leaflets at the base of other 

 leaves " (Balfour's Glossary), are called by bot- 

 anists 'stipules.' I have not allowed the word 

 yet, and am doubtful of allowing it, because it 

 entirely confuses the student's sense of the Latin 

 'stipula' (see above, vol. i., chap, viii., 27) 

 doubly and trebly important in its connection 

 with ' stipulor,' not noticed in that paragraph, 

 but readable in your large Johnson ; we shall 

 have more to say of it when we come to ' straw ' 

 itself. 



28. In the meantime, one may think of these 

 things as stipulations for leaves, not fulfilled, or 

 ' stumps ' or ' sumphs ' of leaves ! But I think I can do better 

 for them. We have already got the idea of crested leaves, (see 

 vol. i., plate) ; now, on each side of a knight's crest, from earliest 

 Etruscan times down to those of the Scalas, the fashion of ar- 

 mour held, among the nations who wished to make themselves 

 terrible in aspect, of putting cut plates or ' bracts ' of metal, like 

 dragons' wings, on each side of the crest. I believe the cus- 

 tom never became Norman or English ; it is essentially Greek, 

 Etruscan, or Italian, the Norman and Dane always wearing 

 a practical cone (see the coins of Canute), and the Frank or 

 English knights the severely plain beavered helmet ; the Black 

 Prince's at Canterbury, and Henry V.'s at Westminster, are 

 kept hitherto by the great fates for us to see. But the South- 

 ern knights constantly wore these lateral dragon's wings ; 



* I am ashamed to give so rude outlines ; but every moment now is 

 valuable to me : careful outline of a dog-violet is given in Plate X 



