Face plant
Apr 13, 2022
3 minutes
Words Jennifer Stackhouse
“And there is pansies; that’s for thoughts,” muses Ophelia in Hamlet. The link is in the flower’s name, which comes from the French word pensée, meaning “thought”.
The pansy of Shakespeare’s time, which he also knew as hearts-ease, was closer to what we today call Johnny jump-up (Viola tricolor), with small, heart-shaped purple flowers splashed with yellow.
Also called a wild pansy, this European wildflower is one of the parents of the modern pansy, a hybrid (×) × .
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