DOWNY YELLOW VIOLET 



"When beechen buds begin to swell 



And woods the bluebirds' warble know, 

 The yellow violet's modest bell 



Peeps from the last year's leaves below." 



— Bryant. 



In northern Ohio the chances are that the Downy 

 Yellow is the first of the Violet family to make an ap- 

 pearance. A few stray Blue ones are likely to come about 

 the same time, but usually a few days later. The ex- 

 act order of precedence 

 among wild flowers can 

 never be definitely set- 

 tled, as they vary in 

 time of flowering some- 

 times a week or more, 

 weather that hastens 

 one seeming to retard 

 another; but ordinarily 

 the Downy Yellow is 

 our first Violet and 

 appears abundantly by 

 the middle of April; 

 also blooms in May. 



In size and shape the 

 blossom is not unlike the 



Common Blue. It appears solitary on a stalk spring- 

 ing from the fork of two leaf-stalks. The anthers and 

 style fairly fill the throat of the flower, and the side 

 petals, heavily bearded, compel the visiting insect to 

 brush against both stigma and anthers when seeking 

 the nectar stored in the spur. At first the plant is 

 about four inches high; later in the season it becomes 

 considerably taller. 



155 



Smooth Yellow Violet. Vidla scahrHscula 



