THE SWEET VIOLET— continued. 
Self-pollination is rare among Violets, most of them being visited for the sake 
of their honey by bees ; but it is remarkable that in the case of several series of 
allied species in different mountain regions we find as we ascend the mountains that 
the flowers of the Violets are larger and have longer spurs, being thus adapted for 
cross-pollination by butterflies — a more alpine group of insects. 
Our Sweet Violet ( Viola odorata Linne), however, is very rarely visited by 
insects, and its well-known and deliciously fragrant, if modestly hidden, flowers 
seldom set seed, although, as Mrs. Gregory, the latest monographer of the group, has 
shown, this is not the absolutely unheard of occurrence which it has sometimes been 
represented to be. On the same plants, later in the summer, the sweet-scented 
purple or white flowers are succeeded by others, borne on shorter peduncles, so that 
they are overshadowed by the leaves. These flowers are cleistogene , never, that is, 
expanding : their sepals remain closed, so that they are often mistaken for buds : 
their petals are quite minute : their five stamens all produce a little pollen which 
germinates within the anthers, its tubes penetrating the walls of the anthers to 
reach the stigma over which they press ; and they form the capsules which yield 
the bulk of the seed. 
This production of cleistogene or cleistogamous flowers, which are necessarily 
self-pollinating, would seem to be a provision for securing the setting of some 
seed, even if insect visits fail, though in attaining this end the advantages of 
crossing have to be sacrificed. 
Together with these special adaptations for seed-production, the Violets have 
others to secure its dispersal. The dry ripe capsules split into three boat-shaped 
valves which spread out horizontally, each having a placenta with one or two rows of 
seeds down its middle line. The seeds are small, round, and polished ; and, as the 
sides of the boat-like valve dry, they shrink towards one another and squeeze off the 
seeds in succession. Whilst, however, in the tall scentless Dog Violet ( Viola canina 
Linne) the capsules are borne aloft and the seeds thus thrown to a distance of several 
feet, in the low-growing Sweet Violet (V. odorata Linne) the capsule generally lies 
on the ground and the seeds are not thrown so far. 
The name Violet, applied to a variety of early-flowering plants, is a mediaeval 
diminutive of the Latin Viola , which is itself a diminutive of the Greek lov, ion , 
a name which the ancients connected with that of the Ionian race. The purple 
blossoms hidden by the leaves have been taken alike as a symbol of humility 
and as the badge of the imperial claims of the Bonapartes. 
