But you will not, in the entire article, find the least attempt to tell you the difference between 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 surpass one or two decimetres.  Its leaves, radical, or carried on stolons, (vol. i., p. 158,) are sharp, or oval, crenulate, or heart-shape.  Its stipules are oval-acuminate, or lanceolate.  Its flowers, of sweet scent, of a dark violet or a reddish blue, are carried each on a slender peduncle, which bends down at the summit.  Such is, for the botanist, the Violet, of which the poets would give assuredly another description.”