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 circumstance 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 passages 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 passage which Lord Stanhope quotes, was the Snowflake or Leucoion (literally, "White Violet").