50 Rhodora [Mxhch 



respects it approaches F. afjinis. It has all the characters coinmoii 

 to the two parents — except fertility. One plant of this was found 

 with the parents in an alder thicket along the Otter Creek in Middle- 

 bury in the spring of 1903, and has since been grown in the garden. 

 It has spontaneously produced four seedlings quite like itself. It was 

 not reported in November 1904, as it was a single instance, and the 

 flowers had not been sufficiently studied. After watcliing it through 

 the past season 1 have no further doubt regarding its origin. 



10. V. AFFiNis X x?:PHKOPnYLLA. — I.eaves and sepals notice- 

 ably less obtuse than in V. nephrophyUa, even somewhat acuminate; 

 capsules of cleistogamous flowers green speckled with brown, often 

 with only withered ovules, rarely with over eight per cent fertilized. 

 Numerous plants, growing with parent species, east shore of Provi- 

 dence Island, Lake Champlain. — The Vermont Botanical Club on 

 its summer outing the last fourth of July visited this island, and found 

 in the crevices of fractured limestone, below the high-water line, an 

 abundance of I'. nephrophyUa. A little further back along a fringe 

 of trees I collected a large clump of a strange violet, which I examined 

 carefully only on my return home. Its sterility and unfamiliar aspect 

 indicated a hybrid; its glabrous herbage, small ovoid cleistogamous 

 flowers, and brown-dotted capsules could be accounted for only by 

 assuming V. affinis as one of the parents. On Jvdy 22nd I revisited 

 the station, found many other specimens of the hybrid, and V. afflnis 

 growing but a few feet away. Two hours' search on the island failed 

 to disclose any other than these two species of blue stemless violet; I 

 therefore venture to name it as above, though the petaliferous flowers 

 are unknown. 



11. V. cucuLLATA X NEPiiROPHYLLA. — Quite intermediate be- 

 tween the parent species in those particulars in which they differ; 

 especially in the length of the cleistogamous flowers and of the auricles 

 of the sepals, characters in which the two species are in extreme con- 

 trast.— In September, 1904, eight or ten plants of V. nephrophyUa 

 were transferred to the garden from the borders of a cold brook run- 

 ning through Judge Munson's farm in Manchester, Vermont. When 

 thev flowered last spring, one of these plants was taller than the rest, 

 more ces{)itose, had less obtuse leaves, and bore smaller flowers on 

 longer ])eduncles. A few days later I revisited the Manchester sta- 

 tion, and found occasionally similar plants, especially where in wetter 

 places colonies of T. eucuUata bordered those of V. nephrophyUa. At 



