BRAINERD: VIOLA PALMATA AND ITS ALLIES 589 
to multiply species, was content to regard this as a variety.’ ’* 
Doubtless both were in error in regarding Muhlenberg’s northern 
plant as identical with the glabrous species of southern river- 
swamps. V. heterophylla stands merely as a name in Muhlenberg’s 
catalogue of 1813; but his plant was probably V. triloba, a very 
common violet of eastern Pennsylvania. Fortunately, the V. 
heterophylla published by LeConte is invalidated by two earlier 
uses of the name, and effective publication of V. esculenta was 
made by Professor Greene in 1898 (Pittonia 3: 314). 
Viola esculenta is very abundant in the suburbs of Jacksonville, 
Florida, in low woodlands on the borders of sluggish brooks, or 
“branches.” In the older plants the rootstock has a crimson 
color and branches widely; the leaves, at least in cultivation, are 
spreading and become stiff and succulent; the flower is pale violet 
or white; the seeds normally light buff, though in some colonies 
they are a dark brown. The plant, which I have grown for two 
seasons and also raised from seed, strikingly illustrates the habit 
of the heterophyllous violets in putting forth characteristic lobed 
leaves only at the time of petaliferous flowering and fruiting. 
Not only are the late summer leaves uncut or obscurely lobed, 
but the seedling plants are so through the whole of the first season’s 
growth. It is especially true of V. esculenta that cut leaves mark 
the period of the plant’s greatest reproductive vigor. As LeConte 
says with a touch of poetry, ‘‘when flowering it takes delight in 
lobed leaves.”"} The foliage is usually quite glabrous; but in one 
colony I found it somewhat pubescent. I suspect this pubescence 
and the dark brown seeds may have come about through intimacy 
with a nearby colony of V. palmata. But in the several plants 
tested, I found that both these off characters, though ‘dominant,’ 
came true from seed. 
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*"Mirum est Elliottum alioquin satis proclivem ad multiplicandum species 
hanc pro varietate habere contentum fuisse.’’—Elliott lumped together all the cut- 
a small segment near the base; grows very common in light soil,’’ is plainly what 
LeConte cpa later as V. septemloba. Dr. Gray, also, aggregated these forms in 
the Sides Flora, allowing none even varietal rank. 
rimum e terra prodit, foliis integris, inflorescens lobatis gaudet, dein cum 
flores eae profert, folia iterum integra habet. LeConte, loc. cit. 139. 
