T6 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



cessary. Third, that private initiative is not sufficient to pre- 

 vent wastefuhiess, that the Government must interest itself in 

 forestry and forestry reforms, and fourth, that the prospects 

 for forestry in the United States are remarkably bright. W& 

 know success may be attained, because we ha\'e no ancient for- 

 est rights or property questiouj to settle, because we have the 

 experience — bitter in some cases — of other countries to guide 

 us and because our forests have no equal in variety and value 

 in the world. Are we then going to neglect these golden 

 opportunities or have we begun to take advantage of them? 



[to be concluded.] 



Dame's Violet. — Those who are familiar with the hand- 

 some cruciferous plant known as dame's violet (Hes peris) may 

 have wondered how a plant so very cress-like in appearance 

 could ever have been called a violet. The origin of this com- 

 mon name lies very far back in the history of plants. It was 

 given to the plant at a time when flowers were not clearly dis- 

 tinguished and when they were all classed as roses, lilies, violets 

 and the like. At the present day we are familiar with the fact 

 that many plants popularly called lilies are not really so, and 

 the same is true of roses. The word, violet once stood for a 

 certain type of flower and the looseness with which it was ap- 

 plied is seen in such names as dog-tooth violet and dame's 

 violet. The generic name, Epilohium, means violet on a pod 

 and must have been given through some such ancient concep- 

 tion of a violet as we have indicated since it is not violet-like 

 from a modern viewpoint. The color violet seems to have 

 been named after the word violet had been restricted to the 

 plants which now bear it. In the older view there is nothing 

 incogruous in the term yellow violet. 



