186 LEAFLETS. 
though he mentions it in his monograph (Ann. Lyc. N. Y. ii. 147) 
as a frequent state of the species. It seems to have been rarely 
collected; but there is a good sheet of it in U. S. Herb. from 
Hamlet, N. C., 15 Apr., 1897, by C. S. Williamson, who found 
it “In dry sand, in pine barrens.” There is also a fine specimen 
from Bluff Spring, Clay Co., Alabama, by Pollard and Maxon, 
July, 1900, in which the digitate foliage appears as the aestival 
development in a plant whose earlier leaves were normally pedate. 
I take this deviation to be not exactly a mutation, but rather an 
example of atavism. It seems to tell us that a remote ancestor 
of V. pedata had the foliage of V. digitata. This view hasa 
further warrant in the young plants of V. pedata that spring up 
from root shoots (its seedlings have never been described) the 
foliage of which is invariably of the digitate type, only simpler, 
exhibiting the cuneate figure, but with only about 3 teeth or 
lobes at summit. 
The analogue of V. digitata in the case of the northwestern 
V. inornata, Greene, has been both described and figured in 
Pittonia. 
V. LAETECAERULEA, Greene, Biol. Soc. xiv. 70. Though not 
quite certain that this well marked violet is a mutate of V. 
papilionacea, I have hardly a doubt that it is such. Two years 
ago, by Mr. Steele’s guidance I came to the original station for it. 
I found it plentiful on the one low mound-like elevation of the 
Potomac flats whence the specimens hadcome. About the borders 
of the elevation there was some almost typical V. papilionacea, 
which species, however, is abundant at no great distance, on 
lower ground, and perfectly normal. There are acres of it on 
the flats, and I could find no specimens elsewhere than on the 
elevation referred to, which indicated any approach to V. /aete- 
caerulea. This not surprising ; for the true thing has all the 
strong characters which I assigned it when I published it. 
V. consuGENs, Greene, Pitt. iv. 3. In the original account 
of this I have said that the corollas are large and blue, recalling 
those of V. cucullata; also that young plants, before acquiring 
the multicipitous caudex and copious leafage and flowering, 
might pass for V. emarginata—excepting, of course, the pale 
