194 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 
do not “ramble.” These really were Virginian 
stocks—but they came from the Mediterranean, and 
not Virginia! Malcomia maritima is their polite 
name. 
Then there was heart’s-ease—that was the pansy—a 
flower so long in cultivation that there is some doubt 
as to what it did spring from, although Viola tricolor 
is supposed to be the wild form. Gerarde’s descrip¬ 
tion, written in 1587? is a better guide to the plants 
which grew in old gardens, here or anywhere, than the 
plants as we know them to-day. The “Hearts-ease or 
Pansie . . . stalks are weak and tender,” says 
he, “whereupon grow floures in form and figure like 
the Violet, and for the most part of the same bignesse, 
of three sundry colours, whereof it tooke the syrname 
Tricolor , that is to say, purple, yellow and white or 
blew; by reason of the beauty and braverie of which 
colours they are very pleasing to the eye, for smel 
they have little or none at all.” He tells, too, about 
the upright pansy —Viola assurgens tricolor: its leaves 
are “of a bleake or pale green colour, set upon slender, 
upright stalks, cornered jointed or kneed a foot or 
higher; whereupon grow very faire floures of three 
colours, viz., of purple, blew and yellow in shape like 
the common Hearts-ease, but greater and fairer; which 
colours are so excellently and orderly placed, that they 
bring great delight to the beholders, though they have 
