22 The Violet. 



Each flower some chosen emblem is ; one is for beauty's bloom, 

 Another friendship claims ; a third sheds fragrance o'er the tomb ; 

 But link'd with holy memories, to penitence how dear ! 

 Thy shrine is aye the broken heart, thy dew contrition's tear. 



Yet glad and dear I hold thy lore, and oft with curious eye, 



Do trace the mystic characters that in thy bosom lie. 



Types of those fearful instruments of agony and scorn, 



The Cross that bore the Lord of life, the nail, the twisted thorn. 



Moral op Flowers. 



The Violet, 



The Violet is not only the name of a genus, but the type of 

 the natural order of Violaeese ; the order, according to Gery, is 

 composed of herbs ; in tropical climates, shrubby plants, with 

 mostly alternate simple leaves, on stalks, with leafy appendages 

 at their base, and irregular flowers. The flower cup is made 

 of five permanent leaves, often ear-shaped at the base. Blossom 

 is composed of five unequal leaves, one of them larger than the 

 others, and commonly bearing a spur or sac at the base ; the 

 summer buds rolled into a cylindric form. Stamens five, with 

 short and broad filament3, which are usually lengthened beyond 

 the introse united anfhers, two of them commonly bearing a 

 gland or a slender appendage, which is concealed in the spur of 

 the corolla ; the anthers approaching each other, or united in a 

 ring or tube. Style usually turned to one side, and thickened or 

 hooded at the apex. Fruit a one-celled capsule, opening by 

 three valves, each valve bearing a parietal placenta in the middle. 

 Seeds numerous, inverted, with a crusty skin. Embryo straight, 

 nearly the length of the fleshy albumen. The derivation of the 

 word Violet is very uncertain; about the best account concerning 

 it seems to be, that it sprung up on purpose to be the food of the 

 metamorphosed Io, daughter of Inachus, who had been changed 

 by Jupiter into a beautiful white heifer, but fed by jealous Juno's 

 orders upon bitter herbs. It is written that it was the study of 

 this flower which induced John Bertram, a quaker of PennRyl- 

 vania, to study plants. He had employed his time in agricultu- 

 ral pursuits without a knowledge of botany, but being in the field 

 one day, he gathered a violet and examined its formation, and 



