THE BEITISH PANSIES. 



181 



in the crosses which first gave rise to the garden Pansies. De Vries, 

 indeed, says : — " The garden Pansies are a hybrid race, won by crossing 

 V. tricolor with the large-flowered and bright yellow V. lutea. They 

 combine, as everyone knows, in their wide range of varieties, the attributes 

 of the latter with the peculiarities of the former" ("Species and 

 Varieties "). There is a blue-flowered variety of this plant known as var. 

 amoena Syme, often found growing with the yellow-flowered plant. The 

 plant known as V. lutea var. multicaulis (fig. 58) was originally placed 

 here. It has several long stems and the general habit of V. lepida, but 

 the flowers are more like those of a small lutea, and may be yellow or 

 parti-coloured. It falls most naturally into the last-mentioned group. 



The fourth group of Pansies is that known as the Curtisii group, and 

 is composed exclusively of plants growing on sandhills by the sea. The 

 habit is generally bushy with long underground stems of similar nature 



Fig. 67. — Viola Provostii Boreau. 



1, Flower ; 2, leaf from middle of plant ; 3, leaf from base of plant ; 

 4, 5, and 6, stipules. (Natural size.) 



to those possessed by most sand-dune plants. As has been stated above, 

 V. ruralis on the sandhills, while adapting itself slightly to the habit of 

 a sand-dwelling plant, does not at all change its other characters in the 

 direction of V. Curtisii. As none of these plants have in any probability 

 served as a stock whence the garden Pansies have arisen they will not be 

 considered further here. 



^ It is interesting to^consider the Pansies described and figured by Gerard 

 in his "Herbal." In the first edition, published in 1597, he refers to a 

 yellow and a tricoloured garden Pansy as quite distinct. He also mentions 

 as wild forms, the Heartsease and the Upright Pansy, the Stony Hearts- 

 ease and the Wild Pansy. Inspection of the very excellent figures leads to 

 the conclusion that these Pansies may with some degree of certainty be 

 referred as follows : the Heartsease is probably V. Lloydii ; the Upright 

 Heartsease looks like V. polychroma ; the Wild Pansy is a degenerate 

 garden escape and the Stony Heartsease probably a small-flowered V. 



