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THE OTTAWA NATURALIST. 



Vol. XII. OTTAWA, JANUARY, 1899. No. 10. 



NOTES ON SOME OTTAWA VIOLETS. 



By James M. Macoun, 

 Assistant Naturalist, Geological Survey of Canada. 



While " Manual " writers, the compilers of local lists and 

 American botanists in general were satisfied to lump into one 

 species — one variety in fact — the several forms of what for so 

 many years had been known as Vw/a ciicullata, or V. palniata, 

 var. cucullata, Canadian botanists have for more than a quarter of 

 century known that this " species " or "variety " included many 

 species and made repeated attempts to induce the recog- 

 nized " authorities " to at least differentiate a number of varieties. 

 In this they were uniformly unsuccessful. Dr. T. J. W. Burgess; 

 made at London, Ont., a special study of the violets of the ^^rw/- 

 lata and sagittata groups. Dr. Jas. Fletcher at the same time 

 studied the violets of this vicinity, and Prof. John Macoun 

 thirty years ago noted on his herbarium sheets the characters 

 upon which several of the new Canadian species are founded. 

 Other Canadian botanists have done work on similar lines. 



The trouble in Canada was, and is, that none of our libra- 

 ries, public or private, contained all the necessary books, mono- 

 graphs and revisions. When Canadian botanists discovered 

 what they thought to be a new species they had but one course to 

 follow. The specimens must be sent to some botanist in the United 

 States or Europe and his decision was final. New discoveries 

 were almost without exception given the names of well-known 

 species. There is but little doubt that in one or other of the 

 herbaria of the older Canadian botanists most of the species 

 recently described by Dr. Greene have been separated from 

 V. cucullata. 



