20. I perceive, farther, that this lanky flower-stalk, bending a little in a crabbed, broken way, like an obstinate person tired, pushes itself up out of a still more stubborn, nondescript, hollow angular, dogseared gas-pipe of a stalk, with a section something like this,
but no bigger than
21. Having now sufficiently observed, it seems to me, this incongruous plant, I proceed to ask myself, over it, M. Figuier's question, 'Qu'est-ce c'est qu'un Pensée?' Is this a violet—or a pansy—or a bad imitation of both?
Whereupon I try if it has any scent: and to my much surprise, find it has a full and soft one—which I suppose is what my gardener keeps it for! According to Dr. Lindley, then, it must be a violet! But according to M. Figuier,—let me see, do its middle petals bend up, or down?
I think I'll go and ask the gardener what he calls it.
22. My gardener, on appeal to him, tells me it is the 'Viola Cornuta,' but that he does not know himself if it is violet or pansy. I take my Loudon again, and find there were fifty-three species of violets, known in his days, of which, as it chances, Cornuta is exactly the last.
'Horned violet': I said the green things were like horns!—but what is one to say of, or to do to, scientific people, who first call the spur of the violet's petal, horn, and then its calyx points, horns, and never define a 'horn' all the while!
Viola Cornuta, however, let it be; for the name does mean something, and is not false Latin. But whether violet or pansy, I must look farther to find out.