135 



Observations on the North American species of the Genus 

 Viola. By Capt. John Le Conte, U. S. Army, F. L. S. 

 &c. Read October 9, 1826. 



This memoir of the Violets of the United States of Ame- 

 rica, does not profess to be a monograph of that difficult 

 genus. Fifteen years of close attention to these plants, have 

 not enabled me to say that I have extricated them from the 

 confusion into which they have been thrown, nor prepared 

 me to overcome the obstacles by which such an undertaking 

 is surrounded. I shall only attempt to relate what my own 

 labours have induced me to consider as correct, and what my 

 own observations have led me to conclude was erroneous in 

 others. The difficulties encountered in prosecuting my in- 

 quiries into this subject, have arisen from various causes, and 

 appeared almost insurmountable. Every attempt to introduce 

 order among the plants at present in question, appears only to 

 have increased the confusion. The desire which we all pos- 

 sess of seeming to comprehend the subject which we attempt 

 to elucidate, inevitably leads us to suppose that our own 

 vague imaginations are the result of investigation and study; 

 and thus a science which ought to be founded entirely upon 

 facts, becomes as varying and as unsettled as fancy itself, and 

 our deductions loose, unsatisfactory, and unphilosophical. 

 He who supposes that the ever-varying forms of nature can be 

 embraced by the mind at one view, and arranged with as 

 much ease as the books on the shelves of a library, knows 

 but little of the science which he holds so cheap. 



The principal writers who of late have attempted to reduce 

 this genus to any order, are the Rev. Mr. von Schweinitz, 

 of Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, and M. Gingins Lasarvaz ; 

 the former in the American Journal of Science and the 

 Arts — I am proud to consider him as my co-labourer — and 

 the latter in the Memoirs of the Society of Natural History 



