ween a violet and a pansy!--except in
one statement--and _that_ false! "The sweet violet will have no rival among
flowers, if we merely seek for delicate fragrance; but her sister, the
heartsease, who is destitute of all sweetness, far surpasses her in rich
dresses and _gaudy_!!! colours." The heartsease is not without sweetness.
There are sweet pansies scented, and dog pansies unscented--as there are
sweet violets scented, and dog violets unscented. What is the real
difference?

14. I turn to another scientific gentleman--_more_ scientific in form
indeed, Mr. Grindon,--and find, for another interesting phenomenon in the
violet, that it sometimes produces flowers without any petals! and in the
pansy, that "the flowers turn towards the sun, and when many are open at
once, present a droll appearance, looking like a number of faces all on the
'qui vive.'" But nothing of the difference between them, except something
about 'stipules,' of which "it is important to observe that the leaves
should be taken from the middle of the stem--those above and below being
variable."

I observe, however, that Mr. Grindon _has_ arranged his violets under the
letter A, and his pansies under the letter B, and that something may be
really made out of him, with an hour or two's work. I am content, however,
at present, with his simplifying assurance that of violet and pansy
together, "six species grow wild in Britain--or, as some believe, only
four--while the analysts run the number up to fifteen."

15. Next I try Loudon's Cyclopaedia, which, through all its 700 pages, is
equally silent on the business; and next, Mr. Baxter's 'British Flowering
Plants,' in the index of which I find neither Pansy nor Heartsease, and
only the 'Calathian' Violet, (where on earth is Calathia?) which proves, on
turning it up, to be a Gentian.

16. At last, I take my Figuier, (but what should I do if I only knew
English?) and find this much of clue to the matter:--

"Qu'est ce que c'est que la Pensee? Cette jolie plante appartient aussi ou
genre Viola, mais a un section de ce genre. En effet, dans les Pensees, les
petales superieurs et lateraux sont diriges en haut, l'inferieur seul est
dirige en bas: et de plus, le stigmate est urceole, globuleux."

And farther, this general description of the whole violet tribe, which I
translate, that we may have its full value:--

"The violet is a plant without a stem (tige),--(see vol. i., p.
154,)--whose height does not s