2405
Greek, not Latin, and looks as
if it meant something between
a bishop and a short letter e)

I next run down this list, noting what names we can keep, and what we
can't; and what aren't worth keeping, if we could: passing over the
varieties, however, for the present, wholly.

(1) Arvensis. Field-violet. Good.

(2) Biflora. A good epithet, but in false Latin. It is to be our Viola
aurea, golden pansy.

(3) Canina. Dog. Not pretty, but intelligible, and by common use now
classical. Must stay.

(4) Hirta. Late Latin slang for hirsuta, and always used of nasty places or
nasty people; it shall not stay. The species shall be our Viola
Seclusa,--Monk's violet--meaning the kind of monk who leads a rough life
like Elijah's, or the Baptist's, or Esau's--in another kind. This violet is
one of the loveliest that grows.

(5) Mirabilis. Stays so; marvellous enough, truly: not more so than all
violets; but I am very glad to hear of scientific people capable of
admiring anything.

(6) Montana. Stays so.

(7) Odorata. Not distinctive;--nearly classical, however. It is to be our
Viola Regina, else I should not have altered it.

(8) Palustris. Stays so.

(9) Tricolor. True, but intolerable. The flower is the queen of the true
pansies: to be our Viola Psyche.

(10) Elatior. Only a variety of our already accepted Cornuta.

(11) The last is, I believe, also only a variety of Palustris. Its leaves,
I am informed in the text, are either "pubescent-reticulate-venose-
subreniform," or "lato-cordate-repando-crenate;" and its stipules are
"ovate-acuminate-fimbrio-denticulate." I do not wish to pursue the inquiry
farther.

24. These ten species will include, noting here and there a local variety,
all the forms which are familiar to us in Northern Europe, except only
two;--these, as it singularly chances, being the Viola Alpium, noblest of
all the wild pansies in the world, so far as I have seen or heard of
them,--of which, consequently, I find no picture, nor notice, in any
botanical work whatsoever; and the other, the rock-violet of our own
Yorkshire hills.

We have therefore, ourselves, finally then, twelve following species to
study. I give them now all in their accepted names and proper order,--the
reasons for occasional difference between the Latin and English name will
be presently given.

(1) Viola Regina. Queen violet.

(2) " Psyc