Prats LIV. 
e 
VIOLA uirra, Linn., var. picta. 
Natural Order VIoLAceZ. 
Gen. Cuan.—Sepals nearly equal, prolonged at base beyond their 
insertion. Petals spreading, the lower one usually larger, having a 
spur or pouch at base. Anthers subsessile, connective flattened, pro- 
longed into a membranous apex; two lower stamens usually spurred at 
the back. Style capitate, clavate or variously expanded, nearly straight 
with the stigma terminal, or more or less recurved with the stigma in 
front. Capsule opening in 3 valves. Seeds ovoid-globose ; testa horny, 
often shining. Herbs, rarely undershrubs. eaves alternate ; stipules 
persistent, often leafy. Pedwneles axillary, 1-, rarely 2-flowered. Plants 
(except in the Melanium section) producing flowers of two kinds, the 
earlier ones perfect, and often sterile; the summer flowers minute, 
haying no petals or concealed petals, but more fertile. Benth. et Hook. 
Gen. Plant. i. 117. 
. Spec. CHar.—Flowers white, streaked with lilac, orbicular in outline, 
scentless ; peduncle glabrous; bracts pubescent on back and edges in 
upper half; cilia glandular. Sepals pubescent at edge, obtuse. Petals 
broad, limb of the four upper ones broadly obovate or suborbicular, the 
two lateral being indistinctly emarginate at apex. Capsule hairy, 
globular, depressed. Leaves (when fully developed) ovate, prolonged, 
surface dull, coarsely pubéscent, teeth long, straight along the back ; 
petiole hairy, hairs deflexed; stipules linear, triangular-lanceolate, pu- 
bescent at edge and on back, cilia pubescent, sometimes glandular. 
Stolons short or wanting, not rooting. 
Viola hirta, Linn. Sp. Plant. p. 13824, yar. picta, Moggridge. 
Hasrtat.—(A) Bosco del Inferno, Albenga, specimens gathered by 
my father, March 16, 1868; (B) fruit gathered in the same spot by 
myself, April 23, 1868. 
Remarxs.—This very pretty variety of Viola hirta, eS , 18 esta- 
blished in such profusion in the Bosco del Inferno at Albenga as to 
constitute there a predominant race, having all the appearance of a 
distinet species ; yet I believe it to be no more than a variety of the 
Hairy Violet, which is itself a rather doubtful species. In like manner 
there is at San Romolo, near San Remo, a colony of plants having 
pinkish flowers and distinctive characters in the sepals and stipules, 
which is also a variety of Viola hirta, Linn. The varieties of V. hirta, 
Linn., and of V. odorata, Linn., are most complex and confusing in the 
south, but careful observation will show that several prominent forms 
