ON THE NAME VIOLA CANINA 291 



change. To the V. canina of Eng. Bot. 620 he gave the new 

 name V. Riviniana, and used the name V. canina to comprise 

 four varieties— var. calcarea, var. sabulosa, var. ericetorum, and 

 var. lucornm. In the Covwientarms, i. p. 61, he said, concerning 

 the variety lucorum : — " Ecce tandem violam caninam Linnei. . . . 

 Jam ubi ad verba Linneana respiciamus, falsas esse omnium 

 auctorum, prseter Haynii, violas caninas. . . . ' Diim primum 

 florescit, acaulis est, et sca-pi quasi radicati, postea caules excrescunt, 

 quibus jjedunculi sunt infixi.' Linn. (Ital., Rchb.)." I consider 

 these words of Linnseus's a good description of the method of 

 growth of the wood violets, which, as Linnaeus says, when they 

 first come into flower, are subacaulescent, at least as much so as 

 is V. canina Kchb. Linnaeus, in his diagnosis in the Flora 

 Lapponica, modifies "acaulis" into " fere radicatis." 



This character of the wood violet explains why the plant was 

 so often figured by pre-Linnean authors, e.g. Gerard and Morison, 

 as an acaulescent violet. 



Perhaps realizing that this v^^as an insufficient reason for 

 making such a great change, in his Fl. Germanica (1824), p. 706, 

 he says of the var. lucorwu : " Hsec nee alia est planta operum 

 Linncei (Ital. Rchb.) (1) verba foliis oblongo-cordatis nonnisi in 

 hanc cadunt ; (2) locus ' in apricis ' huic tantum com petit : 

 (3) specimina Upsaliensia et Holmiensia nostrae pertinent." 



The first two statements are, however, not quite correct. 

 V. sylvestris often has leaves proportionally longer than those of 

 V. canina var. lucorum Rchb., and was described by J. Bauhin 

 " foliis mucronatis oblongis." Further, V. Piiviniana var. nemorosa 

 also has leaves " oblongo-cordatis." It is interesting to note that 

 Borbas, in Koch. Syn. ed. iii., uses this word "oblongis" as evidence 

 that V. canina L. is the plant now called V. sylvestris. 



Again, the words "in apricis" merely mean "in sunny places," 

 such as V. Biviniana very often affects. Most of the authors 

 referred to by Linnaeus say "in sylvis," or "in nemoribus," or 

 say, as J. Bauhin did, "V. sylvatica . . ." Linnaeus himself, in 

 the Flora Lapponica, says, " in sylvis lapponicis non ita frequens 

 nascitur." 



Reichenbach himself immediately shows the amount of im- 

 portance which he attached to his third reason, for he says : 

 " Quid in herbario invenerint, minime mutabit sententiam meam, 

 quam adeo species americana ibi pro V. hirta recepta sit." Few 

 of Linnaeus's specimens are really type specimens, as many were 

 probably added after the publication of the Species Plantarum, 

 and few have any date or locality on the sheets. In the Linnean 

 Herbarium in London the sheet of 7. canina contains three 

 specimens of 7. canina var. lucorum Rcht-, and three of 7. rupcs- 

 tris Schmidt, but the Linnean Herbarium known to Fries only 

 contained 7. sylvatica (Fr., Mant. iii. p. 118). 



The weight of Reichenl)acli's great authority, however, obtained 

 a large following immediately, and in a few years practically no 

 adherents of the older view were left. It will bo seen that neither 

 Reichenbach nor his disciples gave duo weiglit to the synonymy 



