G4 



LETTf:R IV. 



served for years ; whereas, if great precautions to 

 maintain them in their purity had not been constantly 

 taken, they would long since have become thrown 

 tooether, and reconverted into the wild form from 

 which they sprang. I take it for granted, you are 

 so much interested in the pretty flowers of your 

 garden, that you would be sorry to see all the double 

 ones turn single ; — you will now be able to avert 

 such a sad catastrophe. 



Candy tuft {\\i^Y\%\ sweet Alyssum, the snowy ^rc^iis 

 of spring, that pretty little tufted purple thing which 

 is named after the French flower-painter Aubriet 

 (Aubrietia deltoidea). Honesty with its clusters of 

 broad bucklers, the modest Whitlow-grass (Erophila 

 verna), which springs up on the crest of every 

 wall, the earliest harbinger of spring, Watercresses, 

 Horse Radish, and a host of others, will be furnished 

 either by the garden, or the fields, to augment your 

 acquaintance with this natural order. Leaving it 

 now, as requiring no further explanation, we will 

 next proceed to another spring tribe. 



Violets, sweet Violets, and Pansies or Heartsease, 

 represent a small family (PI. IV. 2.), with the struc- 

 ture of which you should be familiar ; more, how- 

 ever, for the sake of its singularity, than for its extent 

 or importance ; for the family is a very small one, 

 and there are but few species belonging to it in which 

 much interest is taken. As the parts of the Hearts- 

 ease are larger than those of the Violet, let us select 

 the former in preference, for the subject of our study. 



The Heartsease is a little herbaceous plant, as you 



