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) " Psyche.  Ophelia’s pansy.

(3) " Alpium.  Freneli’s pansy.

(4) " Aurea.  Golden violet.

(5) " Montana.  Mountain Violet.

(6) " Mirabilis.  Marvellous violet.

(7) " Arvensis.  Field violet.

(8) " Palustris.  Marsh violet.

(9) " Seclusa.  Monk’s violet.

(10) " Canina.  Dog violet.

(11) " Cornuta.  Cow violet.

(12) " Rupestris.  Crag violet.

25.  We will try, presently, what is to be found out of useful, or pretty, concerning all these twelve violets; but must first find out how we are to know which are violets indeed, and which, pansies.

Yesterday, after finishing my list, I went out again to examine Viola Cornuta a little closer, and pulled up a full grip of it by the roots, and put it in water in a wash-hand basin, which it filled like a truss of green hay.

Pulling out two or three separate plants, I find each to consist mainly of a jointed stalk of a kind I have not yet described,—­roughly, some two feet long altogether; (accurately, one 1 ft. 101/2 in.; another, 1 ft. 10 in.; another, 1 ft. 9 in.—­but all these measures taken without straightening, and therefore about an inch short of the truth), and divided into seven or eight lengths by clumsy joints where the mangled leafage is knotted on it; but broken a little out of the way at each joint, like a rheumatic elbow that won’t come straight, or bend farther; and—­which is the most curious point of all in it—­it is thickest in the middle, like a viper, and gets quite thin to the root and thin towards the flower; also the lengths between the joints are longest in the middle:  here I give them in inches, from the root upwards, in a stalk taken at random.

1st (nearest root) 03/4

2nd 03/4

3rd 11/2

4th 13/4

5th 3

6th 4

7th 31/4

8th 3

9th 21/4

10th 11/2