Viola. VIOLACE^. 195 



cately infolding, the gradually increasing pressure at length projecting the hard- 

 coated seeds. (Ours all have decidedly irregular flowers : Sauvagesiacece we 

 exclude.) 



* Sepals produced at base beyond tbe insertion into auricles. 



1 . VIOLA. Lower petal produced at base into a nectariferous spur or deep sac ; the others 

 of about equal length. Filaments very short or none anthers counivent but distinct, at 

 most lightly coherent, the two anterior each with a dorsal appendage or spur projecting into 

 the sac or spur of the lower petal. Style often flexuous below, enlarged upward ; stigma 

 various. Capsule ovoid, crustaceous or coriaceous : valves several-seeded. Seeds obovoid 

 or globular, smooth. Scape or peduncle 1 -flowered, 2-bracteolate. Also some cleistoga- 

 mous flowers, more fertile than the normal. 



* * Sepals not auriculate or appendaged at base : capsule, seeds, &c. nearly of Viola : style 

 as in most Violets club-shaped, the apex abruptly autrorse and beak-like, tipped with the 

 small stigma. 



2. SOLEA. Sepals linear and equal. Petals nearly equal in length, connivent almost to 

 tip ; lower one much larger, saccate at base, emarginate at the broad apex. Stamens with 

 extremely short filaments and broad connectives wholly connate into an ovoid sac, open only 

 between the free tips, a rounded or 2-lobed scale-like gland adnate to the base anteriorly. 



3. lONIDIUM. Sepals somewhat equal, or the posterior smaller. Petals very unequal ; two 

 upper sliorter ; lower longest and largest, concave or slightly saccate at base, contracted in 

 the middle. Stamens with distinct filaments or hardly any, the two anterior with a scale- 

 like gland or sometimes a spur at base ; the connective broad and merely connivent. 



1. VlOLA, Tourn. Violet. (Classical Latin name, digammated form of 

 the Greek lov.) — Widely diffused genus, chiefly of low herbs, mostly of temper- 

 ate regions and the northern hemisphere ; flowering in spring and early summer 

 (but autumnal flowers of the conspicuous sort by no means infrequent), most of 

 our species inodorous or faintly sweet-scented. Cleistogamous flowers, of greater 

 fertility, jiroduced by most species after the normal flowering. Leaves involute 

 in the bud, in several caulescent species puncticulate with brownish dots at 

 maturity. — Inst. 419, t. 236; L. Gen. no. 679; Gray, Gen. 111. i. 185, t. 80. 



§ 1. Perennials: stipules never emulating the blade of the leaf; radical or 

 lower ones more or less scarious : two upper petals turned backward and lateral 

 ones forward toward the lower or merely sjjreading. 



* Strictly acaulescent ; the (dissected) leaves and scapes all directly from a thick and short 

 erect and proliferous-branched fleshy caudex, not at all stoloniferous : corolla saccate- 

 spurred, beardless, not yellow : gibbous-clavate style bearing a rather large antrorse- 

 terminal beakless stigma and beardless. 



V. pedata, L. Tuberous caudex often an inch wide and not longer : glabrous or mostly 

 so: leaves pedately 9-12-parted, or 3-divided and the lateral divisions 3-4-parted, the lobes, 

 &c., from linear to spatulate, some 2-3-dentate at apex : petals half to three fourths inch 

 long, spatulate-obovate, light violet, or deeper, occasionally variegated, or as in all these 

 species varying to white, obscurely or not at all liueate toward base. — Spec. ii. 9.33 ; Curtis, 

 Bot. Mag. t. 89 ; Andr. Bot. Rep. t. 153 ; Sweet, Brit. Fl. Card. t. 69 ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 

 136; Meehau, Native Flowers, ser. 1, i. t. 26. — Sandy soil, New England near the coast to 

 W. Florida, W. Louisiana, Indian Territory, and northwest to Minnesota. 



Var. bicolor, Pursh. Two upper petals dark violet-purple as if velvety, in the 

 manner of Pansy. — Pursh,^fZe Raf. in DC. Prodr. i. 291 ; Gray, Man. ed. 5, 79. V. pedata, 

 var. atropurpurea, DC. Prodr. i. 291. V. fl.abeUifolia, Lodd. Bot. Cab. t. 777, pale lateral 

 petals spreading. V. pedata, var. flabellata, Don in Sweet, Brit. Fl. Gard. ser. 2, t. 247, 

 figured and descrilied as having lateral petals recurved-ascending with the two upper ! — 

 Sparingly with tlie type in the Ea.stern States, but abundant on sliales in Maryland and 

 District of Columbia. 



