VIOLA. 183 



actual offensiveness of scent, there is no space of neglected 

 land which is not in some way modifying the atmosphere of 

 all the world, it may be, beneficently, as heath and pine, it 

 may be, malignantly, as Pontine marsh or Brazilian jungle ; 

 but, in one way or another, for good and evil constantly, by 

 day and night, the various powers of life and death in the 

 plants of the desert are poured into the air, as vials of con- 

 tinual angels : and that no words, no thoughts can measure, 

 nor imagination follow, the possible change for good which 

 energetic and tender care of the wild herbs of the field and 

 trees of the wood might bring, in time, to the bodily pleasure 

 and mental power of Man. 



32. II. VIOLA PSYCHE. Ophelia's Pansy. 



The wild heart's-ease of Europe ; its proper colour an ex- 

 quisitely clear purple in the upper petals, gradated into deep 

 blue in the lower ones ; the centre, gold. Not larger than a 

 violet, but perfectly formed, and firmly set in all its petals. 

 Able to live in the driest ground ; beautiful in the coast sand- 

 hills of Cumberland, following the wild geranium and burnet 

 rose : and distinguished thus by its power of life, in waste and 

 dry places, from the violet, which needs kindly earth and 

 shelter. 



Quite one of the most lovely things that Heaven has made, 

 and only degraded and distorted by any human interference ; 

 tho swollen varieties of it produced by cultivation being all 

 gross in outline and coarse in colour by comparison. 



It is badly drawn even in the ' Flora Danica,' No. 623, con- 

 sidered there apparently as a species escaped from gardens ; 

 the description of it being as follows : 



" Viola tricolor hortensis repens, flore purpureo et cceruleo, 

 C. B. P., 199." (I don't know what C. B. P. means.) "Pas- 

 sim, juxta villas." 



" Viola tricolor, caule triquetro diffuse, foliis oblongis in- 

 cisis, stipulis pinnatifidis," Linn. Systeina Naturas, 185. 



33. " Near the country farms " does the Danish botanist 

 mean? the more luxuriant weedy character probably ac- 

 quired by it only in such neighbourhood ; and, I suppose, 

 various confusion and degeneration possible to it beyond other 



