CRITICAL NOTES ON CERTAIN VIOLETS. 41 
figure of his V. aurea he had written: * Mt. Diablo. Wrongly 
considered a var. of Nuttallii. A distinct sp.” Now the 
plant of Mt. Diablo is certainly not this, but V. purpurea ; 
and I,atthetime of preparing the manuscript of the violets 
for my Flora, knowing nothing of the Nevadan type of 
V. aurea, easily believed that it might be, what the Doctor's 
note seemed to imply, specifically identical with purpurea. 
I now have grounds for expressing another opinion. Speci- 
mens are now in my herbarium from the eastern slope of 
the Sierra—that is, from the V. aurea region—collected in 
Plumas Co. Calif, by Mrs. Austin in 1876, which answer 
perfectly to the account of V. aurea; and what is more, 
Mrs. Austin was taught by Mr. Watson to distribute these 
as “ V. pedunculata” (D), to which species they bear as little 
resemblance, however, as to V. premorsa ; though they have 
. the pubescence of the latter, combined with the obviously 
caulescent growth of V. pedunculata, while the leaves and 
flowers are those of neither. 
V. PURPUREA, Kell., l. c. i. 56 (1855); Greene, Fl. Fr. 243, 
excl. var. I have little to add to the account which I gave 
of this type, in the Flora Franciscana. It is in middle and 
southerly sections of California a plant of the higher parts of 
the Coast ranges of mountains; hardly in the Sierra Nevada, 
where V. pinetorum takes its place. But far northward, it 
.. crosses the line of the Sierra, and appears on the high plains 
of Modoc Co. -But the most beautiful specimens seen are 
some obtained by Mr. Howell in the Coast mountains of 
southern Oregon, near Waldo. In these the leaves are rela- 
tively broader than in the middle Californian type, many of 
. the lower being broader than long, and of an outline that 
. may be defined as almost semiorbicular. The flowers, also, 
. in this northern state of the species are larger than in the 
type; but this Oregonian plant, as it nears the habitat of 
— V. premorsa makes not the least approach to that species in 
E character or aspect, but rather departs the farther from it. 
3 6 Issued 1 June, 1896. 
