88 
THE LADIES’ FLOWER GARDEN 
require constant watering, they are also very liable to be damped off by cold and wet in winter. It must 
therefore be contrived that the bed in which they are planted shall be well drained, and open to the east and 
west. The wild heartsease is quite hardy ; but the finer sorts, in proportion to the number of generations that 
they are removed from it, become delicate and liable to disease. 
The finest flowers are said to be produced by cuttings, taken off in spring, and grown rapidly so as to flower 
the same summer or autumn. These cuttings should be taken from the points of the shoots, cutting them off 
immediately below a joint. This is done with all cuttings, as it is from the joints or buds only that the young roots 
will grow. The end of the cutting must be made firm in the soil, to induce it to throw out roots; and it must 
be covered with a bell-glass and shaded, to keep in the moisture and prevent too much evaporation by the leaves, 
which the cutting, having no roots by which it can imbibe a fresh supply, would be unable to support. For the 
same reason the cutting is deprived of the greater part of its leaves ; as every leaf presents a fresh surface for 
evaporation. The cuttings of heartsease should either be struck (that is, induced to strike root) in silver sand or 
very sandy loam ; as soil of this kind by permitting the transmission of water through it, prevents stagnation, and 
consequently the lower parts of the stems from absorbing it to such a degree as to induce rottenness. As soon as 
the cuttings are rooted they should be transplanted to the bed or border, and supplied with water, and shaded for 
a day or two till the roots become established. 
The finer kinds of heartsease are also propagated by layers. The operation of layering is performed by 
pegging down the young shoots, and covering them all but their points with rich mould kept moist. When the 
layers have rooted, they are divided from the parent plant and transplanted. The roots may also be divided 
into what are called slips, and planted in a shady border, the plants which have not yet flowered being preferred 
for this operation. 
In all cases where heartseases are to be transplanted, or cuttings or layers planted out, it should be done, If 
possible, in dull rainy weather; and if this is impossible, the newly-transplanted flowers should be well watered 
and shaded. Where new kinds are to be raised from seed, the seed should be gathered from those plants which 
produce the largest and handsomest flowers, and at the season when they blossom in greatest perfection; and 
this season is usually from April till June, as the plants appear weakened by the heat of summer, and gene¬ 
rally produce smaller flowers in autumn. Though heartseases may be said to be in flower in favourable 
situations nearly all the year, they are only in full flower in two seasons—viz., from April to June, and from 
August or September till the setting in of the winter. 
2.—VIOLA LUTEA, Huds. THE YELLOW HEARTSEASE. 
Engravings. —Eng. Bot. t. 721, 2nd Edition, vol. ii.; and our Jig. 
2, in Plate 14. 
Specific Character. —Root fibrous, slender. Steins triangular, 
simple. Leaves ovate-oblong, crenate, fringed. Stipulas palmatifid. 
Sepals lanceolate, acute. Petals wedge-shaped, with long distinct 
claws. Spur the length of the calyx.—(G. Don.) 
Description, &c.— The flower is larger than that of V. tricolor , and is yellow marked with blackish, 
radiating lines : sometimes the upper petals are purple. It is a native of Britain, particularly of the mountains 
in Wales and Scotland. It is properly a perennial, but it has been introduced here ; because when raised from 
seed the young plants will flower almost as soon as those of the common heartsease—that is, in about two 
months after the seeds are sown. 
