Violets. 157 



of Violacece ; viz., V. cucullata (the hooded violet) and V. pubescens (the 

 pubescent violet). They will grow unasked and unappreciated ; and are, 

 humanly speaking, the most worthy and meritorious violets in the world. 

 They express the strong vitality of the earth, are fully resolved to do and 

 be something, are on friendly terms with cattle and children, and have an 

 honest welcome and hearty sympathy for the emigrant building his home 

 in the wilderness. 



Another blue violet ( Viola pedata), the bird's-foot violet, sparingly sown 

 in New England, but abundant in the oak-openings of Illinois and AViscon- 

 sin, is fast receding before the advance of civilization. I have made dili- 

 gent inquiry concerning its re-appearance upon lands lying fallow, as the 

 two preceding species invariably will ; and the general testimony is, that, 

 once gone, it does not return. To those who have never seen this violet 

 growing in its luxuriant perfection, a description will avail little or nothing. 

 If the reader has ever, in passing through upland-pastures, suddenly felt a 

 blue dimness coming across his vision, and rubbing his eyes, and rousing 

 himself, has found the heavenly blue to proceed from innumerable blos- 

 soms of the wild forget-me-not {Ollenlandia ccemlea), quite covering the earth 

 in spots, and entirely concealing its minute leaves and almost invisible 

 stems, his experience will enable him to understand what an entrance for 

 the first time into a great congregation of bird's-foot violets must be. 

 Only in this case the blossoms are unmistakably violets (violets as large as 

 pansies), twenty, and even thirty, in a single clump, their golden anthers 

 relieved against the purest blue under the sky.* 



Occasionally, you will find a clump almost pure white, and not unfre- 

 quently one in which the two upper petals of every flower are velvety, and 

 of the deepest violet. The deeply-cleft leaves, resembling larkspur and 

 nigella, are all radical, and form a mat in which the profuse blossom-tufts 

 are embedded. This violet has no fragrance ; but this fact does not deterio- 

 rate it in the least. You would no more think of smelling than of eating 

 it, so completely does its one gift of color, and its habit of growth, satisfy 



* This violet, thougli seldom re-appearing after cultivation, can easily be domesticated in tlie girden. 

 It should be transplanted in clumps in early spring; and will thrive in any garden-soil not too rich and 

 close, if planted in full sunshine. 



It is quite common in New England, and often makes the fields blue in favored localities. 



In cultivation, when once established, it grows larger, and not unfrequently increases by seed. — Ed. 



