Sunday, June 29, 2008

pansies & violets

These are what I think of when I hear "violets" . They can smell delicious and take me zooming back a few years to my childhood in an instant. They start blooming here in January/February and are most welcome. Some have that wonderful odor but others, though beautiful in colors ranging from white to dark purple, don't smell at all. Mom used to pull out the ones that didn't smell but it just seems blasphemous to me, the Total Violet Lover.
These are what I always called pansies or violas. I never gave it a thought that pansies and violas and violets were all related but then, there are stranger family members...just consider all the different looking Campanulas! They're all fun. Pansies come in such an assortment of size and color! What's not to love about them?!

When I was but a small lass, the minister at the Unitarian Church would hand each child a little pot of pansies during the Easter service. I remember bringing those home and Mom helping me plant them in a flower bed near the lath-house. That bed is now filled with Chinese ground orchids but I do think of the pansies every time I walk by and I do wonder if any of the pansies that pop up in odd places around here could be related to those of long ago.

So now I need to study up Lisa's http://fercryingoutloud.blogspot.com links and see just how related these two posies are..yeah, I know. I shoulda done that before I started this blog entry. :>) Hey! Its early! I just woke up!
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1 comment:

Lisa said...

Man, I don't know...

It looks like pansies and violets are both in the viola family, and are therefore related. But they are two different things. Both are violas, but a pansy is no more a violet than a violet would be a pansy.

Uhhh, my head hurts real bad.

Don't people play violas? Wait, is that why violins are called that... is the instrument shaped like a violet?

Ohhh, nap time.