214 LEAFLETS. 
best specimens before me are of my own collecting in 1877, and 
a sheet by Mr. Metcalfe in 1905. 
SENECIO QUAERENS is a name that may perhaps be found tena- 
ble in place of that of my second S. prionophyllus namely that 
of page 212 preceding. 
New Species of Viola. 
During the three seasons last past, in relation to our acaules- 
cent violets I have done some field study, some collecting, and 
not a little silent reflection upon the whole subject, and not so 
much of writing and publication. The defining of new forms, 
as well as wise or unwise commentation upon many somewhat 
newly published I have for the most part left to a number of 
people who, all of them new in this field as compared with my- 
self, are not yet checked by lack of confidence in the sufficiency 
of their own knowledge. 
In the course of some journeyings made in the month of May, 
1902, through Western Maryland, northern Ohio and southern 
Michigan, I took something like alarm at the great number of 
undescribed violets that I encountered ; and to these were added 
in my thought not a few forms common in the valley of the 
Potomac near Washington which I had not yet dared to publish, 
though I had been studying them, but only too interruptedly, 
since the year 1896. 
One or two of the settled conclusions I seem to have reached 
during these three seasons of more silent study I may here briefly 
state. 
I think that the number of valid species of so-called acaules- 
cent violets in the United States is very great; that it may 
amount, eventually, to some hundreds. 
I have not the least faith in the existence of any hybrids in 
this group. Certainly not one case has been proven. Quite a 
number have been guessed at; not one of them with what to me 
is the least show of reason or probability. That which to any 
scientific mind should preclude even any guessing at hybrids, or 
almost any hope of finding such in the field is the simple fact 
that 99 out of 100 seeds of these plants are from flowers that 
