180 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Kerner (figs. 59, 66) is our handsomest British Pansy. It grows in large 

 clumps 12-18 inches in height and with many stems arising from the 

 base. The flowers are very large and brilliantly coloured with blue and 

 yellow. The stipules are palmate, with a larger but quite entire mid-lobe. 

 This plant appears to be very rare in England ; indeed, I have hitherto 

 only found it in Derbyshire. There can be but little doubt that if found 

 it would be seized upon for horticultural purposes, and, as we shall see 

 presently, it is possible that one of the Pansies figured in " Gerard's 

 Herbal" in 1597 was polychroma. Viola Provostii Boreau (fig. 67) 

 is a large branching Pansy with long internodes, stipules like those of 

 polychroma, very long axillary peduncles and large yellow flowers. Our 

 British plants differ from the Continental ones so named only in having 

 broader leaves, a distinction the constancy of which has not been tested 

 and on a priori grounds seems too small and trifling to serve as a dis- 

 tinctive character. Viola declinata Waldst. and Kit. is a very striking 



Fig. 66. — Viola polychroma Kerner. 



1 and 1a, Flower ; 2, leaf from middle of stem ; 3, leaf from base of stem 

 4 and 5, stipules. (Natural size.) 



Pansy (figs. 60, 68), which seems to fall into this group more naturally 

 than into the last. The internodes are long, the leaves are exceedingly 

 narrow, and the whole plant has a slender and graceful appearance. The 

 flowers are large and chiefly blue or purple in colour. The plant is sub- 

 perennial or perennial. The British Pansies referred to this species differ 

 in one or two important respects from the type, and perhaps should not 

 be placed here. 



Passing now to the third group, we find it to consist of a set of 

 upland Pansies with short and almost unbranched aerial stems, and under- 

 ground stems of a perennial nature. The leaves are generally small with 

 pa] 1 i uite stipules, and the flowers are large. Of these plants the best known 

 is V lutca Huds. (fig. 61), a plant growing abundantly on the limestone 

 hills of Derbyshire and elsewhere and having one, or at most few, large 

 yellow flowers on each plant. The flower is generally much longer from 

 tip to tip than it is broad. This is known to be one of the plants used 



