Volume II Part 3 (1/2)

Flora Danica, 1329. Linnaeus, No. 13, ”Caulibus erectis, foliis cordato-lanceolatis, floribus serioribus apetalis,” _i.e._, on erect stems, with leaves long heart-shape, and its later flowers without petals--not a word said of its earlier flowers which have got those unimportant appendages! In the plate of the Flora it is a very perfect transitional form between violet and pansy, with beautifully firm and well-curved leaves, but the colour of blossom very pale. ”In subalpinis Norvegiae pa.s.sim,” all that we are told of it, means I suppose, in the lower Alpine pastures of Norway; in the Flora Suecica, p. 306, habitat in Lapponica, juxta Alpes.

38. VI. VIOLA MIRABILIS. Flora Danica, 1045. A small and exquisitely formed flower in the balanced cinquefoil intermediate between violet and pansy, but with large and superbly curved and pointed leaves. It is a mountain violet, but belonging rather to the mountain woods than meadows. ”In sylvaticis in Toten, Norvegiae.”

Loudon, 3056, ”Broad-leaved: Germany.”

Linnaeus, Flora Suecica, 789, says that the flowers of it which have perfect corolla and full scent often bear no seed, but that the later 'cauline'

blossoms, without petals, are fertile. ”Caulini vero apetali fertiles sunt, et seriores. Habitat pa.s.sim Upsaliae.”

I find this, and a plurality of other species, indicated by Linnaeus as having triangular stalks, ”caule triquetro,” meaning, I suppose, the kind sketched in Figure 1 above.

39. VII. VIOLA ARVENSIS. Field Violet. Flora Danica, 1748. A coa.r.s.e running weed; nearly like Viola Cornuta, but feebly lilac and yellow in colour. In dry fields, and with corn.

Flora Suecica, 791; under t.i.tles of Viola 'tricolor' and 'bicolor arvensis,' and Herba Trinitatis. Habitat ubique in _sterilibus_ arvis: ”Planta vix datur in qua evidentius perspicitur generationis opus, quam in hujus cavo apertoque stigmate.”

It is quite undeterminable, among present botanical instructors, how far this plant is only a rampant and over-indulged condition of the true pansy (Viola Psyche); but my own scholars are to remember that the true pansy is full purple and blue with golden centre; and that the disorderly field varieties of it, if indeed not scientifically distinguishable, are entirely separate from the wild flower by their scattered form and faded or altered colour. I follow the Flora Danica in giving them as a distinct species.

40. VIII. VIOLA PAl.u.s.tRIS. Marsh Violet. Flora Danica, 83. As there drawn, the most finished and delicate in form of all the violet tribe; warm white, streaked with red; and as pure in outline as an oxalis, both in flower and leaf: it is like a violet imitating oxalis and anagallis.

In the Flora Suecica, the petal-markings are said to be black; in 'Viola lactea' a connected species, (Sowerby, 45,) purple. Sowerby's plate of it under the name 'pal.u.s.tris' is pale purple veined with darker; and the spur is said to be 'honey-bearing,' which is the first mention I find of honey in the violet. The habitat given, sandy and turfy heaths. It is said to grow plentifully near Croydon.

Probably, therefore, a violet belonging to the chalk, on which nearly all herbs that grow wild--from the gra.s.s to the bluebell--are singularly sweet and pure. I hope some of my botanical scholars will take up this question of the effect of different rocks on vegetation, not so much in bearing different species of plants, as different characters of each species.[7]

41. IX. VIOLA SECLUSA. Monk's Violet. ”Hirta,” Flora Danica, 618, ”In fruticetis raro.” A true wood violet, full but dim in purple. Sowerby, 894, makes it paler. The leaves very pure and severe in the Danish one;--longer in the English. ”Clothed on both sides with short, dense, h.o.a.ry hairs.”

Also belongs to chalk or limestone only (Sowerby).

X. VIOLA CANINA. Dog Violet. I have taken it for a.n.a.lysis in my two plates, because its grace of form is too much despised, and we owe much more of the beauty of spring to it, in English mountain ground, than to the Regina.

XI. VIOLA CORNUTA. Cow Violet. Enough described already.

XII. VIOLA RUPESTRIS. Crag Violet. On the high limestone moors of Yorks.h.i.+re, perhaps only an English form of Viola Aurea, but so much larger, and so different in habit--growing on dry breezy downs, instead of in dripping caves--that I allow it, for the present, separate name and number.[8]

42. 'For the present,' I say all this work in 'Proserpina' being merely tentative, much to be modified by future students, and therefore quite different from that of 'Deucalion,' which is authoritative as far as it reaches, and will stand out like a quartz d.y.k.e, as the sandy speculations of modern gossiping geologists get washed away.

But in the meantime, I must again solemnly warn my girl-readers against all study of floral genesis and digestion. How far flowers invite, or require, flies to interfere in their family affairs--which of them are carnivorous--and what forms of pestilence or infection are most favourable to some vegetable and animal growths,--let them leave the people to settle who like, as Toinette says of the Doctor in the 'Malade Imaginaire'--”y mettre le nez.” I observe a paper in the last 'Contemporary Review,'

announcing for a discovery patent to all mankind that the colours of flowers were made ”to attract insects”![9] They will next hear that the rose was made for the canker, and the body of man for the worm.

43. What the colours of flowers, or of birds, or of precious stones, or of the sea and air, and the blue mountains, and the evening and the morning, and the clouds of Heaven, were given for--they only know who can see them and can feel, and who pray that the sight and the love of them may be prolonged, where cheeks will not fade, nor sunsets die.

44. And now, to close, let me give you some fuller account of the reasons for the naming of the order to which the violet belongs, 'Cytherides.'

You see that the Uranides, are, as far as I could so gather them, of the pure blue of the sky; but the Cytherides of altered blue;--the first, Viola, typically purple; the second, Veronica, pale blue with a peculiar light; the third, Giulietta, deep blue, pa.s.sing strangely into a subdued green before and after the full life of the flower.

All these three flowers have great strangenesses in them, and weaknesses; the Veronica most wonderful in its connection with the poisonous tribe of the foxgloves; the Giulietta, alone among flowers in the action of the s.h.i.+elding leaves; and the Viola, grotesque and inexplicable in its hidden structure, but the most sacred of all flowers to earthly and daily Love, both in its scent and glow.

Now, therefore, let us look completely for the meaning of the two leading lines,--

”Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath.”

45. Since, in my present writings, I hope to bring into one focus the pieces of study fragmentarily given during past life, I may refer my readers to the first chapter of the 'Queen of the Air' for the explanation of the way in which all great myths are founded, partly on physical, partly on moral fact,--so that it is not possible for persons who neither know the aspect of nature, nor the const.i.tution of the human soul, to understand a word of them. Naming the Greek G.o.ds, therefore, you have first to think of the physical power they represent. When Horace calls Vulcan 'Avidus,' he thinks of him as the power of Fire; when he speaks of Jupiter's red right hand, he thinks of him as the power of rain with lightning; and when Homer speaks of Juno's dark eyes, you have to remember that she is the softer form of the rain power, and to think of the fringes of the rain-cloud across the light of the horizon. Gradually the idea becomes personal and human in the ”Dove's eyes within thy locks,”[10] and ”Dove's eyes by the river of waters” of the Song of Solomon.