VIOLALS. 371 
The Violet is a very short-stemmed plant, since its height never 
reaches more than from 3 or 4 inches. Its leaves, which are 
radical, or growing upon suckers, are acutely or ovoidaly crenulate, 
or heart-shaped. The stipules are oval, accuminate, or lanceolate. 
The flowers have a sweet odourous aroma, of a violet or reddish 
blue colour, each borne upon a slender peduncle, which is returned 
at the summit. Such is the Violet (Viola odorata, as in Fig. 389), 
to the botanist; the poet would give a very different description 
of it. 
It is well known that there are many other species of this plant 
which, to the disappointment of many, are inodorous; such are 
Wood Violet, the Dog Violet, &e. 
But what of the Pansy? This pretty little plant also belongs 
to the Violet tribe, or to a section of it. In the Pansy the upper 
petals and laterals are directed above, and only the lower one is 
directed below, and generally the stigmata is inceolate and 
globulous. 
There are two varieties of the Pansy, or Viola tricolor. The 
Wild Pansy, the corolla of which does not overreach the calyx; 
the other the Garden Pansy, the petals of which more or less over- 
reach the calyx. The size and colour of the Pansy have been 
greatly varied by cultivation. 
The Crassutace® comprehend the plants commonly known as 
Houseleeks, on account of the quantity of water which they enclose 
in their tissues, and the general thickness of their leaves, which is 
Supposed to give them a resemblance to the Leek, and from their 
Properties. The Orpine, or Biting Stonecrop (Sedum acre), Fig. 390, 
will serve as a type of the family. It is a little fleshy plant, being 
common upon old walls, thatched roofs, and stony and gritty places 
which are exposed tothe sun. It has a slender subterranean stem, 
recumbent and creeping, throwing up branches here and there, 
Covered with short, straight, sessile, and fleshy leaves resembling 
little eggs slightly flattened at the top, and bearing five or six 
flowers disposed in a series of terminal branching corymbs. 
What, then, is the organisation of these-flowers? They have 
each a calyx composed. of five fleshy pieces, five free petals, and 
double the number of stamens, with flattened runners pointed at 
the summit, bilocular anthers, pointing back at their axis; lastly, 
