164 Rhodora | [AvavsT 
VIOLA PALLENS WITH PURE WHITE PETALs.— I have observed an 
interesting variation of Viola pallens here in Franklin, Mass. It 
occurred in a single bed about five feet in diameter, growing in the 
moist muck on the edge of a swamp intimately mingled with the 
typical Viola pallens in the proportion of about two hundred blossoms 
of the form to six hundred of the type. It differed in having all its 
petals pure white, without the purple lines usually characteristic of this 
specles and its immediate allies. Careful examination revealed no 
difference in leaf, root, or flower, except in this one particular. This 
form might perhaps be called 
VIOLA PALLENS (Banks) Brainerd, forma alba f. nov. Petalis 
omnino albis, non striatis.— LLEWELLYN R. PERKINS, Franklin, Mass. 
JUNCUS ARTICULATUS, VAR. NIGRITELLUS IN MAINE.— Among 
some Junci collected by Miss Kate Furbish in July, 1902, at Cutler, 
Maine, and included in her herbarium recently presented to the New 
England Botanical Club, is a plant obviously of close affinity to 
Juncus articulatus but with the few branches of the inflorescence stiff 
and erect instead of spreading. In its inflorescence the plant thus 
strongly simulates J. alpinus of our northern borders, but its perianth 
and capsule are distinctly those of J. articulatus. A study of the group 
shows it to be with little question the rare plant, hitherto known only 
from the mountains of Scotland and Scandinavia, originally described 
by Don as J. nigritellus, but by all recent botanists considered a variety 
of J. articulatus. The plant has had several varietal names but the 
earliest treatment of it as a variety seems to have been in 1837 when 
it was called J. lampocarpus, var. nigritellus (Don) Macreight, Man. 
Brit. Bot. 242. It is now generally agreed that the Linnean name, 
J. articulatus, must be maintained for the plant which has passed in 
Europe as J. lampocarpus Ehrh., so that the variety with strict in- 
florescences and very dark capsules should be called J. articulatus 
L., var. nigritellus (Don) Druce, Brit. Pl. 71 (1908). ‘This variety, 
formerly known only from boreal Europe, is an interesting addition to 
the flora of the outer coast of eastern Maine, a region already nota- 
ble for its boreal flora — Elymus arenarius L., Eriophorum opacum 
(Bjórnstr.) Fernald, Carex norvegica Willd., Iris setosa Pallas, var. 
canadensis Foster, Comandra livida Richards., Rumex occidentalis Wat- 
son, Stellaria humifusa Rottb., Montia fontana L., Rubus Chamaemorus 
L., Empetrum nigrum L., etc.— M. L. FERNALD, Gray Herbarium. 
Vol. 11, no. 127, including pages 125 to 148, was issued 1 J uly, 1909. 
