A Year in a Lancashire Garden Part 7

3. Because Pliny also describes the Violet as growing in sunny and barren places ("apricis et macris locis"), whereas really Violets always grow in the shade.

4. Because he speaks of the Violet as springing from a fleshy root-stock ("ab radice carnoso"), whereas the Violet root is fibrous.

5. Because Ovid couples the Violet with the Poppy and the Lily as flowers which, when broken off, hang their heads to the ground.

I need not say much as to Lord Stanhope's not finding Violets in Sicily in winter, for the question is, whether he would not find them in Italy in spring. Nor does the fact of the Sicilian peasants speaking of the Iris as a Violet disturb me any more than when I hear a Scotch peasant speak of the "Harebell" as a "Bluebell."

The real authority is Pliny, and Pliny settles the question completely.

He says (I quote for convenience from Bohn's translated edition):--"Next after the Roses and the Lilies, the Violet is held in the highest esteem. Of this there are several varieties, the purple, the yellow, and the white, all of them reproduced from plants, like the Cabbage. The Purple Violet, which springs up spontaneously in sunny spots with a thin meagre soil, has larger petals than the others, springing immediately from the root, which is of a fleshy substance. This Violet has a name, too, distinct from the other wild kinds, being called 'ion,' and from it the ianthine cloth takes its name."

He goes on to say that of cultivated kinds the Yellow Violet is held in most esteem. He speaks then of the Tusculan and Marine Violet as having broader petals than the others, but being less sweet, while the Calathian Violet is also without scent.

A little farther on he describes the Iris itself, and says "the stem of this plant is a cubit in length and erect, the flower being of various colours like the rainbow, to which circ.u.mstance it is indebted for its name." It is, he adds, a plant of a caustic nature, and the root is used in perfumery and medicine, but the flower is _never employed for garlands_.

After this, perhaps, it is needless to add that of course Lord Stanhope is mistaken in supposing that there are no Yellow Violets (he may find any number half-way up the Rigi), or that Violets do not often grow in sunny and sterile places, or that the Purple Violet has not a fleshy root-stock.

That the Sweet Violet, which Pliny says was used for wreath-making, was generally cultivated is certain from Horace's

"Tum _violaria_ et Myrtus, et omnis copia narium Spargent olivetis odorem."

_Odes_, ii. 15.

Then, again, the Sweet Violet was used for the flavouring of wine--the "vinum violatum."

There are other pa.s.sages in which Pliny speaks of the sweetness of the Violet. He says it is sweetest at a distance, and that it has no scent except in the flower itself.

There can be no doubt then whatever (I conceive) that the Greeks, when they spoke of the "ion," or the Romans of the "Viola," generally meant our Violet, and that the Violet-wreaths were made from this familiar flower.

Still the name was perhaps loosely used, and it is highly probable that the flower to which Ovid refers, in the pa.s.sage which Lord Stanhope quotes, was the Snowflake or Leucoion (literally, "White Violet").

NOTE II.

ON THE AZALEA VISCOSA.

I was much pleased to see my observations on the Azalea as a fly-catcher confirmed by a subsequent paragraph (October 3, 1874,) in the _Gardeners' Chronicle_. It is interesting, and I now reprint it.

AZALEA VISCOSA A FLY-CATCHER.

Under this heading Mr. W. W. Bailey gives the following observations in the current number of the _American Naturalist_:--

"The many curious observations published of late in regard to vegetable fly-catchers have opened my eyes to such phenomena as are presented in my forest walks. As is well known to all botanists, our sweet swamp Azalea (Azalea viscosa) has its corolla covered on the outside with innumerable clammy and glandular hairs. Each hair is a prolongation of the cuticle, and is surmounted by a purple and globular band. In the bud these hairs appear to cover the whole surface of the flower, but when the corolla expands they are seen to occupy the midrib of the petals as well as the tube of the corolla. These glandular hairs are efficacious fly-catchers, but what the object is in thus securing insect prey I will not pretend to state. I have been amusing myself, if any such apparently cruel occupation can be considered entertaining, in watching the capture of flies by the Azaleas. When I first brought the flowers home, many small insects, as winged ants, were entrapped amidst the hairs. These have remained alive several days, still vainly struggling for freedom. As the house-flies are abundant in my room, it occurred to me that I might extirpate the pests, and at the same time learn something of the process of insect-catching. I have not noticed that the powerful fragrance of the blossoms attracts the house-fly, although I have no doubt that it does the smaller insects. It seemed to be accidental when the house-flies were captured. I exposed a number of buds and fully-opened blossoms on a sunny window-sill thronged with flies. It was not many minutes before I had several captives. A mere touch of a fly's leg to the glutinous hairs was sufficient for his detention. A struggle only made matters worse, as other legs were by this means brought in contact with the glands. These emit long glairy threads, which fasten to the hairs of the flies' legs. They may be drawn out to a great length and tenuity, still retaining their strength. If two buds are pressed together, and then drawn apart, innumerable threads may be seen to bind them. There is a complete network of them between the various glands. They will confine the strongest fly; he is at once held like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. Under the microscope the legs of the fly are seen to be covered with the secretion, which is perfectly white and transparent. In one attempt to escape, a house-fly lifted a flower bodily from the window-sill, perhaps a quarter of an inch, but at once sank back exhausted amidst the hairs. One, after long efforts, escaped, but seemed incapable of using its legs; it flew away readily.

In one instance I have found the dried remains of a small insect embedded amidst the hairs, but cannot say whether its juices were in any way absorbed by the plant. If such a.s.similation takes place, what is its purpose? Can this phenomenon of fly-catching be accidental, or is some nice purpose concealed in it? I merely state the facts as I have observed them; perhaps others can supply further information."

NOTE III.

ON THE SOLANUM TRIBE.

It is very curious to compare the two following pa.s.sages of two great masters of style--Ruskin and Michelet--both writing of the tribe to which belongs the Tomato. Ruskin, in _The Queen of the Air_, p. 91, says:--

"Next, in the Potato, we have the scarcely innocent underground stem of one of a tribe set aside for evil, having the deadly nightshade for its queen, and including the henbane, the witch's mandrake, and the worst natural curse of modern civilisation--tobacco. And the strange thing about this tribe is, that though thus set aside for evil, they are not a group distinctly separate from those that are happier in function. There is nothing in other tribes of plants like the form of the bean blossom; but there is another family with forms and structure closely connected with this venomous one. Examine the purple and yellow bloom of the common hedge Nightshade;--you will find it constructed exactly like some of the forms of the Cyclamen; and getting this clue, you will find at last the whole poisonous and terrible group to be--sisters of the Primulas.

"The nightshades are, in fact, primroses with a curse upon them, and a sign set in their petals by which the deadly and condemned flower may always be known from the innocent one,--that the stamens of the nightshades are between the lobes, and of the primulas opposite the lobes of the corolla."

Now for M. Michelet. In _La Sorciere_, p. 119, he writes of the herbs used by the witches:--

"Ce que nous savons le mieux de leur medecine, c'est qu'elles employaient beaucoup, pour les usages les plus divers, pour calmer, pour stimuler, une grande famille de plantes, equivoques, fort dangereuses, qui rendirent les plus grands services. On les nomme avec raison, les _Consolantes_ (Solanees).

"Famille immense et populaire, dont la plupart des especes sont surabondantes, sous nos pieds, aux haies, partout. Famille, tellement nombreuse, qu'un seul de ses genres a huit cents especes.

Rien de plus facile a trouver, rien de plus vulgaire. Mais ces plantes sont la plupart d'un emploi fort hasardeux. Il a fallu de l'audace pour en preciser les doses, l'audace peut-etre du genie.

"Prenons par en bas l'ech.e.l.le ascendante de leurs energies. Les premieres sont tout simplement potageres et bonnes a manger (les aubergines, les tomates, mal appelees pommes d'amour). D'autres de ces innocentes sont le calme et la douceur meme, les molenes (bouillon blanc), si utiles aux fomentations.

"Vous rencontrez au dessus une plante deja suspecte, que plusieurs croyaient un poison, la plante miellee d'abord, amere ensuite, qui semble dire le mot de Jonathas: 'J'ai mange un peu de miel, et voila pourquoi je meurs.' Mais cette mort est utile, c'est l'amortiss.e.m.e.nt de la douleur. La douce-amere, c'est son nom, dut etre le premier essai de l'h.o.m.oeopathie hardie, qui, peu a peu, s'eleva aux plus dangereux poisons. La legere irritation, les picotements qu'elle donne purent la designer pour remede des maladies dominantes de ces temps, celles de la peau."

Speaking of magical herbs reminds one of the "moly," which Mercury gives to Ulysses, and which enabled him to withstand the enchantments of Circe. This "moly" with its white blossom is particularly well known to me, for, when I first came to my present house, the wood near the lodge was so full of it that it seemed as if a dinner of onions was for ever being cooked: I found it exceedingly hard to eradicate. "Moly" is none other than the Garlic, and Circe had apparently the same objection to it as had the wife of the Merchant of Bagdad in the _Arabian Nights_.

By the way, what could Mr. Tennyson have been thinking of when he describes his lotus-eaters as

"Propt on beds of amaranth and _moly_"?

Another poet too, now a well-known divine, once spoke of

"--souls that pure and holy Live and love and prosper well, Leaning aye on myrrh and _moly_, Melilote and asphodel."

NOTE IV.

ON THE SUNFLOWER OF THE CLa.s.sICS.

I have been much puzzled to know what was the Sunflower of cla.s.sical story,--in other words, what was the flower into which, according to the legend, Clytie was so sadly changed.

I had always supposed, as nearly every one supposes, that it was what _we_ call the Sunflower (the Helianthus), with its upright stem and large radiated disc. But, first of all, I found, as a matter of fact, that the Helianthus does _not_ follow the course of the Sun, and that various blossoms of the same plant may at the same time be facing in different directions. And then I found, what of course was fatal, that the Helianthus is not a European plant at all, and first came to us from North America.

Having consulted _Notes and Queries_ in vain, I determined to look into the matter more closely, as it seemed to me a rather curious question.

If the Sunflower of the Cla.s.sics was not the Helianthus, and if this, as I imagine, only obtained its name from its flowers, which in some way resemble the old pictures of the Sun, could it be the plant we know as _Heliotrope_? The name of course means "turning Sunward," but again the name is no guide to us; the scented flowers of the Heliotrope do not, so far as I know, turn to the Sun, and in any case the plant is of Peruvian and not of European origin.

I then fell back upon the cla.s.sical authors themselves. I got nothing very distinct from Theophrastus, and moreover it is Ovid, to whom we chiefly owe our knowledge of the story. He tells us that when her lover Phoebus left her, poor Clytie "still gazed on the face of the departing G.o.d, and bent her looks on him. It is said that she remained rooted to the ground; of her fresh bloom ('color'), part is turned by livid pallor into bloodless leaves, on part a blush remains, and a flower most like a Violet has covered all her face. Held firmly by the root, she still turns to the Sun she loves, and, changed herself, she keeps her love unchanged."

Pliny says the Heliotropium "turns with the Sun, in cloudy weather even, so great is its sympathy with that luminary. At night, as though in regret, it closes its blue flowers."

What then can this flower be, a blue flower, which turns towards the Sun?

I next examined the magnificent volumes of Sibthorp's _Flora Graeca_.

There is there indeed a European "Heliotropium," "Heliotropium supinum,"