110 Rhodora. [JUNE 
species as V. rostrata and V. conspersa. Sir William J. Hooker ob- 
serves ! that “the greater number [of spurs in V. adunca] are straight, 
thick and very obtuse," though they are generally uncinate “in the 
state of bud." The spurs of these species are unusually long, and 
apparently are doubled up in aestivation, and when the flower expands 
often do not quite straighten out. The spur not infrequently displays 
other aberrant forms,— tapering to a more or less acute point, or 
bearing one or more small protuberances on the upper side. Several 
pseudo-species have been founded on these trivial malformations: 
V. oxyceras, V. odontophora, V. unguiculata, V. drepanophora, V. 
mamillata, V. uncinulata. Dr. Watson, with more reason, would 
distinguish all the forms with straight blunt spurs as var. longipes 
(Nutt. pro sp.). But both kinds of spur, straight and hooked, are 
at times to be seen on the same plant! Nuttall's V. longipes is by 
others taken to designate the glabrous forms; but his description 
reads “glabrous or slightly pubescent”; and one of the two plants 
collected and labeled by himself as his type (or at least marked with 
an asterisk, his way of writing ‘n. sp.’) shows marked puberulence. 
Should not the name be allowed to pass into the ‘limbo of synonymy’? 
The dotted, or minutely speckled, herbage ascribed by Sir J. E. 
Smith to V. adunca is not a proper character, but rather a condition 
not found in the living plant, but in specimens poorly dried, or later 
exposed to heat and moisture. It is the effect of fermentation in- 
duced by enzymes. It may be observed on old specimens of many 
species of Viola that are but remotely related to each other. Its 
presence, however, has suggested several specific names, such as V. 
punctata Schwein., V. conspersa Reichenb., V. maculata Cavan. 
Hooker, confirming Smith’s account of dotted leaves in V. adunca, 
says that all his own specimens, and these from very remote localities, 
are “so thickly covered with distinct brown dots as to give a dusky 
hue to the foliage, and to bring the species near to some of the South 
American kinds, which present that appearance in a remarkable 
degree.” Dr. Gray, among the characters separating V. striata and 
V. canina from his V. Howellii, says the leaves of the former are “apt 
to be brown-dotted in age," those of the latter are *dotless."? — But 
1 Flora Bor.-Am. i. 79. 1830. 
? I am indebted to Prof. Burns of the University of Vermont for a microscopic in- 
vestigation of this phenomenon. 
3 Synop. Fl. N. Am. I. pt. 1. 204 & 205. 
