THE WATER VIOLET— continued. 
serve as food to the plant. Growing in shallow, clear ponds, ditches, and marshy 
places, generally on a gravelly soil, the plant has a creeping root and sends out 
from the base of the scape radiating, floating, succulent branches, six inches to a 
foot in length and about as stout as a goose-quill. These branches send down at 
intervals long silvery roots into the water and bear the whorls of leaves ; and it is 
their terminal buds, crowded with thickened leaves, that form the winter-buds. The 
pectinate or comb-like leaves are from one to four inches long and the cylindrical 
scapes may rise a foot or more out of the water. The whorls consist of from four 
to eight flowers each and have linear bracts ; and the pedicels, which may be an 
inch or more in length, take an ascending direction during flowering, but become 
deflexed after fertilisation. The sepals are linear, sub-acute, and about as long as the 
tube of the corolla, i.e. about a third of an inch in length ; whilst the white or lilac 
limb of the corolla has a yellow eye and rounded, notched petals, and is about 
three-quarters of an inch across. The short, subulate filaments are, as in Primula , 
opposite to the petals ; and, also as in the nearly related genus, the ovary is globose 
and the style and stigma are undivided. The numerous seeds are somewhat 
angular and cover the relatively large, globose, free-central placenta. 
It has been observed that tiny drops of clear liquid exude from the upper part 
of the ovary and, to a less extent, from its sides and from the style. This may be 
the nectar, or it may be the exudation of some of the excess of water in the 
transpiration current. 
Most of the earlier botanists combined this distinctively pretty plant with various 
other aquatic plants with finely-cut leaves, such as Myriophyllum , Utricularia , and the 
Batrachian Ranunculi , under the general name of Water Milfoil. Recognising some 
likeness in the flower to the Cruciferous Stocks or Gilliflowers ( Matthiola ), Lyte 
called it Water Gilliflower ; and, as the name Violet was also applied to the Stocks, 
Hottonia acquired the name Water Violet by which it is now most generally known. 
Gerard, in 1 597, writes of it that it has 
“ small white flowers like unto stocke Gilloflowers ... is called in Dutch Water Violieren , that is to saie, Viola aquatiln : 
in English water Gilloflower, or water Violet : in French Gyrojlees d'eaue ... I have not founde such plentie of it in any 
one place as in the water ditches adjoining to Saint George his fielde neere London.” 
William Curtis, two hundred years later, in his “ Flora Londinensis,” says that 
it “ abounds in most of our watery ditches near London.” Though not now to be 
found in the neighbourhood of St. George’s Cathedral, Southwark, it is still 
fortunately not uncommon in the home counties, its delicate tints beautifying 
many a humble pool in May and June. 
It is now known in Germany as W'asser-viole , and in France as Plume d'eau or 
Millefeuil/e aquatique ; whilst Featherfoil , used by Sir J. E. Smith, is said to be still 
current in Cumberland and Water Yarrow in Yorkshire. 
