Spec. Plant. Willd. i. 1159.

Cl. 5. Ord. 1. Pentandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Violaceae. G. 446. Calyx five-leaved. Corolla five-petalled, irregular, horned at the back. Anthers cohering. Capsule superior, three-valved, one-celled. * stemlss. Species 12. V. odorata.1 Sweet Violet. Med. Bot. 3d edit. 251.

t. 89. Smith, Flora Brit. 245. Officinal. VIOLAe flores, Bub. Violae odoratae flores, Edin.

The recent flower of the violet.

Syn. Violette odorante (F.), Blaue veilchen (G.), Tamme Viool (Dutch)' Marts fioler (Dan.), Akta fioler (Swed.), Viola Mammola (I.), Violeta (S.), Violetta (Port.), Pachutschaja fialko (Russ.), Kiet tuong hoa (Chinese).

This species of the violet is indigenous, growing in shady places, and flowering in April and May. It is a low creeping plant, giving out runners, which root at small intervals, and send up tufts of leaves and flowers. The roots are fibrous: the leaves heart-shaped, with crenated edges, on slender foot-stalks; the upper surface of a lively green colour, the under paler and downy. The flowers are supported on delicate, quadrangular, channelled flower-stalks, about two inches long, furnished with two small bractes, and curved at the summit: the calyx consists of five green leaflets, the two posterior of which are separated by the spur of the corolla; the petals have a deep violet colour, are white at the base, and irregular; the two lateral ones are bearded near the base, and the posterior, which is slightly keeled, has a large spur, enclosing glandular appendices of the corresponding anthers: the anthers are nearly sessile, whitish, flat, supporting orange-coloured, membranous expansions that cover the upper part of the germen; which is pyramidal, downy, and crowned with a falcated pistil.

For medicinal and chemical purposes, the sweet violet is cultivated in great abundance at Stratford-on-Avon; but the London herb-shops are supplied chiefly from Kent. As the petals only, separated from the calyx, are brought to market, it is difficult to detect the admixture of the viola hirta, an inodorous species, which is often practised. It is not, however, a matter of much importance.

Qualities. - Violets have an agreeable sweet odour, and a very slightly bitter taste. When chewed they tinge the saliva blue, and yield their colour and flavour to boiling water. The root, stem, leaves, flowers, and seeds yield an alkaline principle not unlike emetina, which M. Boullay, its discoverer, has termed violina. It is, like emetina, a powerful poison.2

Dioscoridis. 2 Journ. de Pharmacie, Jan. 1824.

It is united with malic acid in the violet, as emetine is with gallic in ipecacuanha.

Medical properties and uses. - The petals of the violet are gently laxative, and were formerly regarded as anodyne and pectoral; but they are now scarcely ever used, except for preparing the syrup, which is given occasionally as a purgative to infants. Their aqueous tincture, and the syrup, are useful and delicate tests of the presence of uncombined acids and alkalies: the former changing the blue colour to a red, the latter to a green. The infusion is not liable to change, if it be kept in a tin flask, well stopped. MM. Corte and Wille-met, who employed the powdered roots to produce vomiting, found that that was fully effected by doses of two scruples.

Officinal preparation. - Syrupus Violae, E. D.