BRAINERD: VIOLA PALMATA AND ITS ALLIES 587 
the whole plant very pubesce 
sparsely pubescent, the long Soi ee hirsutulous. 
It might be difficult to say which is more admirable, the clear 
conciseness of Elliott, or the detailed exactness of Greene; but 
surely all must concede that both these expert phytographers are 
describing the same thing—a pubescent violet with pedately dis- 
sected leaf. The apparent discrepancy between “very pubescent” 
and “‘sparsely pubescent”’ is due to the fact that Professor Greene’s 
specimens were collected in southern Illinois, June 15, about two 
months after petaliferous flowering. When the plant blooms, in 
the South about the first of April, the unfolding leaves are markedly 
pubescent; two months later when they have attained their normal 
size the pubescence, spread out over a surface perhaps thirty 
times as great, seems sparse. Moreover, as with most pubescent 
violets, the leaves produced in midsummer are nearly glabrous. 
Such foliage is commonly described by the ambiguous word 
Now to which of the older species has this var. dilatata of Elliott 
the closest kinship? Surely not to Viola palmata as he supposed; 
that has leaves palmately cut and seeds always dark brown; 
Elliott’s plant has only some leaves cut and that pedately, and 
seeds always a light buff. But in these characters it agrees with 
V. triloba, as it does also in flowers, capsule, and pubescence. The 
only difference that I can make out is that in var. délatata the cut 
leaves have more and deeper incisions. Moreover, in the southern 
Alleghanies where both forms occur, they are connected by numer- 
ous intergradations. I am therefore compelled to call the plant: 
Viola triloba Schwein., var. dilatata (Ell.), comb. nov. V. 
palmata L., var. dilatata Ell.; V. falcata Greene.—Dry woodlands 
and thickets; abundant from southwestern Louisiana northward 
to northern Oklahoma, southern Missouri, and southern Illinois; 
thence eastward to northern Georgia and western North Carolina 
(PLATE 36). 
Flowering specimens of this attractive violet are rarely seen 
even in university herbaria. It was distributed in Greene and 
Pollard’s decades—no. 2, collected at Biltmore, N. C., June 3-17, 
1899, long out of bloom. Other collections are: Eggleston 4506, 
Kuttawa, western Ky., June 2-18, 1909; Bush 2313, Fulton, Ark., 
