VIOLA. 185 



needs insisting on, because there is a ' Viola lutea ' which is 

 not yellow at all ; named so by the garden-florists. My Viola 

 aurea is the Eock- violet of the Alps ; one of the bravest, 

 brightest, and dearest of little flowers. The following notes 

 upon it, with its summer companions, a little corrected from 

 my diary of 1877, will enough characterize it. 



" Jane 1th. The cultivated meadows now grow only dan- 

 delions in frightful quantity too ; but, for wild ones, primula, 

 bell gentian, golden pansy, and anemone, Primula farinosa 

 in mass, the pansy pointing and vivifying in a petulant sweet 

 way, and the bell gentian here and there deepening all, as if 

 indeed the sound of a deep bell among lighter music. 



"Counted in order, I find the effectively constant flowers 

 are eight ; * namely, 



" 1. The golden anemone, with richly cut large leaf ; prim- 

 rose colour, and in masses like primrose, studded through 

 them with bell gentian, and dark purple orchis. 



" 2. The dark purple orchis, with bell gentian in equal 

 quantity, say six of each in square yard, broken by sparklings 

 of the white orchis and the white grass flower ; the richest 

 piece of colour I ever saw, touched with gold by the geum. 



" 3 and 4. These will be white orchis and the grass flower. \ 



" 5. Geum everywhere, in deep, but pure, gold, like 

 pieces of Greek mosaic. 



" 6. Soldanclla, in the lower meadows, delicate, but not 

 here in masses. 



" 7. Primula Alpina, divine in the rock clefts, and on the 

 ledges changing the grey to purple, set in the dripping caves 

 with 



" 8. Viola (pertinax pert) ; I want a Latin word for various 

 studies failures all to express its saucy little stuck-up way, 



* Nine ; I see that I missed count of P. farinosa, the most abundant 

 of all. 



f "A feeble little quatrefoil growing one on the stem, like a Par- 

 nassia, and looking like a Parnassia that had dropped a leaf. I think it 

 drops one of its own four, mostly, and lives as three-fourths of itself, for 

 most of its time. Stamens pale gold. Root-leaves, three or four, grass- 

 like ; growing among the moist moss chiefly. " 



