ICi 



about three feet in height, on a branch of which I detected a fas- 

 cicle of four leaves, the primary leaves being about half an men 



in length. Both of the specimens mentioned above have been 



carefully compared with the collection of pines in the herbarium 

 of Columbia College, and sections of the leaves have been exam- 

 ined under the microscope. The result of the comparison and 

 examination leave but little doubt that the specimens referred to 

 belong to the species of pine named above. J. I. NoRTHROP. 



Viola palmata, L. While botanizing recently at Pelham 



Mano 



fcj 



of plants of Vzo/a pahnafa hc3.nng\Gcives that varied from rem- 

 iform to those cut and divided into linear lobes. I examined 

 the flowers and found them almost as varied in form as the 



leaves. In some the spurred petal was hardly 

 noticeable, and in another two of the petals 

 seemed to be entirely missing. In others tne 

 lateral petals were very dissimilar both in shape 

 and in size, while in a few cases I found the petals 

 were lobed or parted in a manner that seemed 

 to follow no law. One of the most curious forms is shown m 

 the cut. 



At first it seemed that the tendency to variation so often 

 shown in the leaves of Viola palmata had extended to its petals, 

 but in a swamp near the locality mentioned above I found many 

 plants of the same species in which the leaves were simply 

 toothed, and among them a few that bore flowers with cut petals, 

 so in this case the variations had commenced wath the flower. 

 The only other difference I noticed between the plants with 

 the divided leaves and those that grew in the swamp, was the 

 greater size of the plant, and the greater length of the sepals in 

 the flow^ers of the latter. . J_ j, NORTHROP- 



Synedra pnlchclla, Kittz., var. abnormis, Macchiati, In the 

 April number of the Bulletin of the Italian Botanical Society i" 

 Florence is an interesting and valuable contribution to the litera- 

 ture of the Diatomaceae from the pen of Macchiati. Some algc^ 

 found in the vicinity of Sassuolo, furnished amon^r other diatoms, 

 an abnoraial form of Synedra piikhdla, which, on account of the 



