4 BRAINERD: STEMLESS VIOLETS OF THE SouTH 
mother hybrid. Among these nine offspring are two as glabrous 
as the plant of Mr. Pollard. It is hoped that seeds of the Oak 
Mt. plants recently sown will another season throw still further 
light on the status of V. amorphophylla. 
Viola sagittata and V. emarginata constitute another pair of 
closely allied species; indeed, the latter was originally proposed by 
Nuttall as a variety of the former. V. emarginata grows in much 
drier'soil, and matures wider leaves. It occurs frequently in open 
woods near Eutaw Springs and Columbia, S. C., and in groves of 
oak on hillsides at Tryon, N. C.; also abundantly on low hills in 
the vicinity of Muskogee, Okla. The notched petals that Nuttall 
observed in the type, and that suggested the name, are rarely 
found in the plants of the South and West. 
Viola sagittata is found through a remarkably wide range— 
from eastern Massachusetts to southern Louisiana. It is also 
noteworthy for its inconstancy as respects pubescence. It seems 
to be normally glabrous; but forms with slight or marked pubes- 
cence, like that of V. fimbriatula, occur in certain districts of the 
East, and prevail in the region of the Great Lakes. When these 
two species grow together, they are generally confluent, not only 
as regards pubescence, but in length of petiole, in width of leaf, 
and in sagittate incision at base.* The general situation seems 
to present a marked instance of an interchange of characters in 
two allied species through hybridism, continued perhaps from a 
remote past. 
Viola dentata Pursh has found a place in the Britton Manual as 
the older name of V. Porteriana Pollard,{ an anomalous plant 
of not infrequent occurrence in the northern and middle Atlantic 
States. This in 1904 I interpreted as V. cucullata X fimbriatula,§ 
the plant discussed above in connection with V. amorphophylla. 
The identification by Professor Greene of this plant with Viola 
dentata Pursh is based mainly upon its being ‘‘quite the same” 
as an unpublished colored drawing of LeConte’s, labeled V. 
*“Where the two species [V. fimbriatula and V. sagittata] grow together it is 
difficult to find the pure species unmixed.’’ Philip Dowell, Bull. Torrey Club 37: 
175. 29 Ap I9g10o. ' 
+See Rhodora 8: 57. pl. 68. 27 Mr 1906; and Am. Nat. 44: 233. Ap Igto. 
t Bull. Torrey Club 24: 404. pl. 314. 1897. 
§ Rhodora 6: 217. 30 N 1904. 
