The TOilHG MT^BAUST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Part 42. MAT, 1883. Vol. 4. 



VIOLETS. 



By J. P. SouTTER, Bishop Auckland. 



WHETHER as a showy florist's 

 flower in the garden parterre, or 

 hiding with timid modesty under the 

 hedgerows, or basking in the blazing 

 sunshine on the dry banks and braes, 

 the violet is ever a welcome and favour- 

 ite flower. Poets have sung its praises 

 in no stinted strains, Scott says : — 

 " The violet in her greenwood bower, 



Where birchen boughs and hazels mingle, 

 May boast herself the fairest flower, 



In glen, or copse, or forest dingle." 

 And Wordsworth sings : — 



" As long as there are violets 

 They will have a place in story," 



And in the simplest of pastoral lays, 

 he likens the lovely Lucy to : — 

 " A violet by a mossy stone, 

 Half hidden from the eye, 

 Fair as a star when only one 

 Is shining in the sky. 



Shakespeare speaks of : — 



" Violets dim, 

 But swfeeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 

 Or Cytherea's breath," 

 And speaking of a strain of sweet 

 music he says : — 



O it came o'er my ear like the sweet south 

 That breathes upon a bank of violets, 

 Stealing, an4- giving odour." 



It is essentially the lovers flower, thus 



Barry Cornwall sings : — 



" It has a scent as though love for its dower, 



Had on it all his odorous arrows tost ; 



For though the rose has more perfuming 



power. 



The violet (happy 'cause 'tis almost lost, 

 And takes us so much trouble to discover) 

 Stands first with most, but always with a 



lover." 



In fact one can scarcely open a volume 

 of poems, or scan the effusions of any 

 poetaster without meeting with abun- 

 dant allusions to the modest violet." 



The natural order Violaceae embraces 

 twenty genera, and aboiat 250 species, 

 of these only one genus Viola is indig- 

 enous, and of it we have from five to 

 fifteen species and varieties, according 

 as one follows the " lumpers," or the 

 " splitters." Except two or three 

 local varieties, these are all pretty 

 generally distributed throughout the 

 kingdom, and at least here in the 

 North of England all are fairly 

 frequent. 



Eirst of these then ns perhaps the 

 best known, at any rate, the most 

 popular and belauded, although by no 

 means the most abundant in a wild 

 state, is the sweet violet (F. odorata). 



