96 Rhodora [JUNE 
LeConte also recognized the plant under two different names. It 
is (1) his V. cucullata var. y, as both his description and one of his 
figures clearly show; and (2) “V. asarifolia Pursh,” perplexingly 
said to have very large villous leaves, short peduncles scarcely over 
an inch and a half long [aestival conditions], a naked glabrous spurred 
petal, and for habitat Canada and northwestern New York. [? sc. 
and southward.] 
In recent years Willdenow's plant has been variously disposed of; 
Mr. Witmer Stone regards it as a form of V. palmata dilatata Ell.; 
and for Prof. Greene it has furnished material for at least four new 
species,— V. laetecaerulea, V. cuspidata, V. nodosa, and V. Dicksonii. 
V. viLLosa Walter. This name was applied by the older American 
botanists to two quite distinct species. Elliott and LeConte, who 
were intimately acquainted with the plants of Walter's region, under- 
stood him to refer to a violet, found only south of Virginia, chiefly 
in pine-barrens,— densely and finely pubescent throughout,— a spe- 
cies allied to V. fimbriatula, and published in 1898 by Prof. Greene 
as V. Carolina. But Nuttall, and after him Schweinitz and Torrey, 
applied the name to a violet that grows on dry slopes among decidu- 
ous trees from southern New York to Georgia, chiefly along the 
eastern foothills of the Appalachian Mountains,— a. small species 
allied to V. papilionacea,— marked by somewhat rigid silvery pubes- 
cence on the upper surface of the leaf, though elsewhere glabrous. 
Which of these two plants is the V. villosa of Walter? That it is the 
first of the above described species, can be shown I think beyond a 
reasonable doubt. I would present the three following points for 
consideration. 
1. Walter tells us in his preface that nearly all the species in his 
Flora Caroliniana were found in a tract that might be bounded by a 
line of fifty miles. His house and the botanical garden, in which he 
was buried, were on the banks of the Santee River, near the middle 
of the great tide-water plain of the southern Atlantic States. No 
specimen of the upland plant, V. villosa of Nuttall, has ever been found 
in this tract or within a hundred miles of the home of Walter. But 
the other species, as I can testify after a recent visit, is here most 
abundant; frequent colonies occur along the old Charlestown road 
from Eutawville to the Walter plantation; it was seen on railway 
embankments and even in the streets of towns like Summerville. 
'The plant could hardly have escaped the observation of Walter; 
and if noted in his Flora, it was surely under the name V. villosa. 
