STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
this, for the loss was soon replaced from Nature’s abundant 
store. 
I doubt not but that Violets and Primroses, the Blue- 
bells and the Cowslips yet bloom and flourish in the loved 
haunts of our childhood. Year after year sees them bloom 
afresh—pure, sweet and fragrant as when last we filled our 
laps with their flowers or twined them in garlands for our 
hair; but we change and grow old. God wills it so, and 
it is well! Though Canada boasts of many members of this 
charming family, there is none among our Violets so deeply 
blue, or so deliciously fragrant, as the common English 
March Violet, Viola odorata. This sweet flower bears away 
the crown from all its fellows. One of our older poets (Sir 
Henry Wotton) has said, as if in scornful contrast of it 
when compared with the rose, 
“* Ye violets that first appear, 
By your pure purple mantles known, 
Like the proud virgins of the year, 
As if the spring were all your own, 
What are ye when the rose is blown?” 
Good Sir Henry, we would match the perfume of the 
lowly violet even against the fragrance of the blushing rose. 
Though deficient in the scent of the purple Violet of 
Europe, we have many lovely species among the native 
Violets of Canada. The earliest is the small flowered 
EARLY WHITE VIOLET—Viola blanda (Willd.). 
This blossoms early in April, soon after the disappear- 
ance of the snow. The light green smooth leaves may be 
seen breaking through the black, damp, fibrous mould 
closely rolled inward at the margins; the flowers are small, 
rather sweet scented, greenish white, with delicate pencil- 
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