6i 
APPLICATION OF THE VIOLET COLOURED BLOT, TO A 
GROUP OF VIOLET OR PURPLE FLOWERS. 
The different varieties of the common crocus will afford us almost all 
the shades of violet, or purple, beginning with lilac, the lightest of them, 
down to a pretty deep shade though not to the deepest; but as we shall 
form the group of the lightest or palest flowers, a very deep shade of purple 
will not be wanted for the harmonizing tint; and if we take the wall-flower 
to convey yellow, the contrasting tint, we may have every shade also, from 
the palest green yellow, to a full tint, approaching to orange.—The very 
scanty portion of green in the leaves of the crocus, makes it requisite, to 
select some flower, whose leaves will afford the necessary quantity, which 
even the leaf of the wall-flower will hardly supply; and their form, too, being 
somewhat similar to those of the crocus, a long narrow shape, is a circum¬ 
stance not in favour of the beauty of them in the group, in point of contour; 
but those flowers blowing at the same time in the spring, it naturally points 
out the combination, although with this disadvantage, but which it must be 
the painter’s endeavour to obviate, by introducing the leaf of some other 
(flower or plant; and no better presents itself to my recollection at present, 
than a young climbing twig of the wild honeysuckle whilst in bud, before 
the flower opens. 'The green leaves like those of the nasturtium, afford 
two very different tints of green on the in, and outside, which, as they are 
both of a lighter tint than either the crocus or wall-flower leaf, would serve 
admirably to distribute the green into the lighter parts of the group; and 
the honeysuckle, - too, before it is opened in a cluster of purplish, pale 
yellow buds a sort of broken tint that would conduct the eye to a distance 
from the principal mass of lilac in the centre and shade side of the group. 
The unopened buds of the wall-flower also presents a different shade of broken 
purple tint, as do the stalks, which are often tinged with purple; and all these little 
circumstances give so many opportunities of distributing the purple or lilac 
throughout, which it must be more profusely than either the yellow or green; 
L 
