452 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



compatible with the ideas then current. With the information at 

 their disposal limited to a knowledge of the external appearance of 

 a plant, its habitat and length of life, and with their attention con- 

 centrated almost exclusively on its medicinal properties, it will not 

 surprise us that the early writers should group together unrelated 

 forms under the same name. Thus we find the Stock (at this time 

 referred to indifferently under the names Leucoium and Viola alba, 

 both names signifying white — the description white referring apparently 

 to the appearance of the leaves, and not to the colour of the petals) 

 included together with the Rocket and the Wallflower in the same 

 group as the Violets, on account of the sweet scent characteristic 

 of all the four genera. We may note in passing that the ancients 

 placed the plants included under the name Viola third in order of 

 nobihty of the flower, the honour of first place being assigned to the 

 Rose, the second to the Lily. 



Now in FucHs' herbal we find no mention of a double Stock. 

 The single, as stated above, is described and figured ; apparently, how- 

 ever, it was still somewhat of a rarity in Germany, and was known 

 in German as welsch Veiel, the strange or foreign Violet. Nor in 

 the more important botanical works which appeared during the next 

 twenty-five years do we find any record of the existence of the double 

 form. The several later editions of FucHs' work. Bock's " Herbal," 

 the earUer works of the celebrated Belgian botanist Dodoens, 

 the various versions of and commentaries on Dioscorides' " Materia 

 Medica " by M. Vergilius, Amatus, Ruellius, Mattioli, Cornarius, 

 CoRDUS, Laguna, and others appearing between 1529 and 1567, all 

 mention only the single form. The enlarged edition of William 

 Turner's " Herbal," which was completed in 1568, also contains no 

 reference. 



It seems clear that the double Stock was not generally known at 

 this date, but such positive evidence as we have indicates that it may 

 have been just about this time that the sport made its appearance. 



The first reference to the existence of the double form which I 

 have been able to find dates back to the year to which our investiga- 

 tion has now brought us, viz. 1568. It occurs in a work, deahng 

 with plants having flowers sweet-smelling and suitable for chaplets 

 or garlands, by the Belgian botanist referred to above. Dodoens * 

 speaks of it as a Leucoium which multiplies the leaves of the flowers, 

 but which is very rare because it is of the larger sort which begins 

 to flower in the early spring, and hence requires greater care to prevent 

 its being kiUed by the cold in the winter months, and he adds that 

 it is to be found in gardens. Mention is here made also for the first 

 time, so far as I know, of the double form of the Wallflower. In 

 neither case is there any figure accompanying the text. Illustrations 

 of the double forms of both Stock and Wallflower, or Stock Gilouer and 



* Flortim el coronariarum, &c. For previous reference to Dodoens' work in 

 this connexion see Reports to the Evolution Committee oj the Royal Society, Rep. II. 

 p. 30, 1905. 



