PROSERPINA. 



place : content, at present, if English maids know better, by 

 Proserpina's help, what Shakspeare meant by the dim, and 

 Milton by the glowing, violet. 



CHAPTER IL 



PINGUICULA. 



(Written in early June, 1881.) 



1. ON the rocks of my little stream, where it runs, or leaps, 

 through the moorland, the common Pinguicula is now in its 

 perfectest beauty ; and it is one of the offshoots of the violet 

 tribe which I have to place in the minor collateral groups of 

 Viola very soon, and must not put off looking at it till next 

 year. 



There are three varieties given in Sowerby : 1. Vulgaris, 2. 

 Greater-flowered, and 3. Lusitanica, white, for the most part, 

 pink, or ' carnea,' sometimes : but the proper colour of the 

 family is violet, and the perfect form of the plant is the ' vul- 

 gar' one. The larger-flowered variety is feebler in colour, and 

 ruder in form : the white Spanish one, however, is very lovely, 

 as far as I can judge from Sowerby's (old Sowerby's) pretty 

 drawing. 



The ' frequent ' one (I shall usually thus translate ' vulgaris'), 

 is not by any means so ' frequent ' as the Queen violet, being 

 a tine wild-country, and mostly Alpine, plant ; and there is 

 also a real 'Pinguicula Alpina,' which we have not in England, 

 who might be the Regina, if the group were large enough to 

 be reigned over : but it is better not to affect Royalty among 

 these confused, intermediate, or dependent families. 



2. In all the varieties of Pinguicula, each blossom has one 

 stalk only, growing from the ground ; and you may pull all 

 the leaves away from the base of it, and keep the flower only, 

 with its bunch of short fibrous roots, half an inch long ; look- 

 ing as if bitten at the ends. Two flowers, characteristically, 

 --three and four very often, spring from the same root, in 

 places where it grows luxuriantly ; and luxuriant growth 



