VIOLA TRICOLOR.— THE HEART’S EASE. 
Class Y. PENTANDRIA. Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, VIOLACEH3. — THE VIOLET TRIBE. 
Root somewhat fusi-form; stems branched, diffuse ; lower leaves ovate-cordate, deeply crenate ; stipulas 
runcinately-pinnatifid, with the middle lobe crenated ; petals incumbent, with short claws ; spur thick, 
obtuse, not stretched out ; nectaries short ; seeds oblong-ovate. Native in cultivated fields and gardens 
throughout Europe, Siberia, and North America; plentiful in Britain. Bracteas very small, scarcely 
evident. Petals very variable in colour and size. This is a very variable species, or more probably a 
heterogeneous mass of species collected. 
The Hearfs ease, Viola tricolor, was once esteemed efficacious in the cure of cutaneous disorders. This 
plant, when bruised, smells like peach-kernels ; and hence, probably, it contains prussic acid : the same 
odour is also communicated to water in which it has been distilled. 
We transcribe a very agreeable passage on the Heart’s-ease, from the “Flora Domestica.” This 
beautiful flower is & native of Siberia, Japan, and many parts of Europe. Mr. Brooke, speaking of the 
forests in Sweden, says, “ innumerable flowers of the liveliest colours peeped out between the masses of 
brown rock, enamelled with various kinds of lichens ; and huge fragments were variegated with beds of the 
Pansy, or Heart’s-ease, displaying its different hues, relieved by the dark-green of the sweeping pines. 3 ” 
It is a general favourite, as might be supposed from the infinity of provincial names which have been be- 
stowed upon it from its beautiful colours : — Love in Idleness ; Live in Idleness ; Call me to you ; Three 
faces under a Hood; Herb Trinity ; Pink of my John ; Flower of Jove ; and Flamy, because its colours are 
seen in the flame of wood. 
It is a species of violet, and is frequently called the Pansy-violet, or Pansy, a corruption of the French 
name pens ties. 
The smaller varieties are scentless, but the larger ones have an agreeable odour. Drayton celebrates 
its perfume by the flowers with which he compares it in this respect ; but then, to be sure, his is an Elysian 
Heart’s-ease : 
“ The Pansy and the violet, here, 
As seeming to descend 
Both from one root, a very pair, 
For sweetness do contend. 
“ And pointing to a pink to tell 
Which hears it, it is loth 
To judge it ; but replies, for smell 
That it excels them both. 
1 Wherewith displeased they hang their heads, 
So angry soon they grow, 
And from their odoriferous beds 
Their sweets at it they throw.” 
The Heart’s-ease has been lauded by many of our poets ; it has been immortalized even by Shakspeare 
himself ; but no one has been so warm and constant in its praise as Mr. Hunt, who has mentioned it in 
I many of his works. In the Feast of the Poets, he entwines it with the Vine and the Bay, for the wreath 
bestowed by Apollo upon Mr. T. Moore. In the notes to that little volume, he again speaks of this flower, 
and I do not know that I can do better than steal a few of its pages to adorn this. 
“ It is pleasant to light upon an universal favourite, whose merits answer one’s expectation. We know 
little or nothing of the common flowers among the ancients ; but as violets in general have their due men- 
tion among the poets that have come down to us, it is to be concluded that the Heart’s-ease could not miss 
its particular admiration, — if indeed it existed among them in its perfection. The modern Latin name for 
it is flos Jovis, or Jove’s flower, — an appellation rather too worshipful for its little sparkling delicacy, and 
more suitable to the greatness of an hydrangea or to the diadems of a rhododendron. 
‘ Quseque per irriguas quaerenda Sisymbria valles 
Crescunt, nectendis cum myrto nata coronis ; 
Flosque Jovis varius, folii tricoloris, et ipsi 
Par violse, nulloque tamen spectatus odore.’ 
With all the beauties in the vallies bred, 
Wild mint, that’s born with myrtle crowns to wed, 
And Jove’s own flower, that shares the violet’s pride, 
Its want of scent with triple charm supplied.’ 
Rapini Hortorum, lib. i. 
* Brooke’s Sweden, p. 54. 
