Thursday, 18th.—The violets abound now, everywhere, in the grassy fields, and among the withered leaves of the forest; many of them grow in charming little tufts, a simple nosegay in themselves; one finds them in this way in the prettiest situations possible, the yellow, the blue, and the white. A pretty habit, this, with many of our early flowers, growing in little sisterhoods, as it were; we rarely think of the violets singly, as of the rose, or the lily; we always fancy them together, one lending a grace to another, amid their tufted leaves.
There are many different varieties. Botanists count some fifteen sorts in this part of the country, and with one or two exceptions, they are all probably found in our neighborhood. There are some eight different kinds of the blue, or purple, or gray, these colors often changing capriciously; three more are yellow; three more again are white, and one is parti-colored or tri-color; the blue and purple are the largest. Some of these are very beautiful, with every grace of color or form one could desire in a violet, but not one is fragrant. It seems strange, that with all the dewy freshness and beauty of their kind, they should want this charm of the violet of the Old World; but so it is. Still, they are too pleasing and too common a flower to find fault with, even though scentless. The European violet, however, is not always fragrant; some springs they are said to lose their odor almost entirely; the English violet, at least, which has been attributed to the dryness of the season.
Our yellow varieties are great ornaments of the spring, and very common, though not so abundant or large as the purple; one kind, the earliest, grows in little companies of bright, golden blossoms, which are often out before the leaves.
