1 



1 82 The Ottawa Naturalist. [January 



However this may be, I have had no opportunity of exam- 

 ining tiiese herbaria and whatever of value there maybe in these 

 notes is the result of my own work in the vicinity of Ottawa 

 during the spring and summer of 1898. Realizing that without 

 some rare works on violets to which I have not access, mistakes 

 would certainly be made, I gladly availed myself of the willing- 

 ness of my triend Dr. Edw. L. Greene to assist me in my work 

 and sent him a full series of the specimens as they were col- 

 lected. It was a great satisfaction to me to find that he entirely 

 agreed with my separation of the local violets of the cucullata 

 group into six species and his diagnosis of these from 

 living material is in every respect satisfactory. 



Mr. C. L. Poland in a recent paper on Acaulescent Violets, 

 says : " At the outset I wish to emphasize the importance of un- 

 remitting field-work and the absolute uselessness of herbarium 

 material unless one is fortified by previous familiarity with the 

 growing plant." With this I heartily agree. Pronounced as the 

 characters are upon which the species described in this paper are 

 separated, great difficulty might still be experienced in deter- 

 mining dried specimens of one gathering, especially flowering 

 plants before the appearance of the apetalous flowers. The 

 niethod pursued in collecting the series upon which the following 

 new species were described is, I believe, the only one which will 

 insure satisfactory results. The early flowers were collected in 

 May, the stations at which they were collected were carefully 

 marked and visited again ten days or two weeks later, and then 

 two or three times in June and July. The result was that with 

 the complete series before him a child could separate the 

 species. 



Though much has already been done, this group of violets 

 requires further study and I can confidently prophesy that at 

 least one additional species will be added to the Ottawa Flora. 



The beautiful and accurate drawings made by my friend 

 Mr. Theodor Holm constitute the most valuable part of this 

 paper. His work has been so carefully done that no collector 

 need in the future experience any difficulty in determining any 



