123 
EPIMEDIUM VIOLACEUM. 
(violet-flowered earren-wort.) 
CLASS. OliDKR. 
TETRANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
NATURAL ORDKR. 
BERBERlDEiE. 
Generic Character. — Calyx four-leaved, caducous, opposite the petals. Nectaries four, cup-shaped, 
incumbent on the petals. Pod one-celled, tvvo-valved, many-seeded. — Loudort's Encycloposdia of 
Plants. 
Specific Character Plant an herbaceous perennial. Leaves twice ternate, heart-shaped, ciliated at 
the margins, either radical, on short petioles, or springing fiom the flower-stalk. Flower-stalk 
hairy, longer than the leaf-stalk. Flowers of a purplish violet colour, on long peduncles. 
There is something so peculiarly graceful and interesting in the habits of this 
little plant, and the flowers are so extremely delicate and elegant, that it will 
doubtless soon become a favourite with persons of taste, and obtain the extended 
circulation it so justly merits. The genus of which this pretty plant forms a new 
feature, contains very few known species, and was founded originally on the well- 
known E. alpinum^ which, though frequently found growing wild in our woods, is 
considered a doubtful native, and is much admired and extensively cultivated as a 
border plant. We are unable to state with certainty whether the present species 
will prove so hardy as that just alluded to, as our figure was taken from a newly 
imported plant, which flowered in the greenhouse ; but we have little doubt that 
it will prove sufficiently hardy to endure the open air in this country, particularly 
as so many of the plants that have been introduced from the same quarter have 
succeeded so well in the open ground in the collections in the neighbourhood of 
London. 
It may be cultivated with the greatest ease by being planted or potted in a 
loamy soil. If kept in a pot, it should be watered with great caution after the 
