11 
ON SOME OF THE BRITISH PANSIES, AGRESTAL AND 
: MONTANE, 
By J. G. BAKER, Esq. 
. According to the masters of the modern. French school of deserip- 
tive phytography, a number of plants, united. under the name of Viola 
tricolor, retain under cultivation characteristics sufficiently distinctive 
- to justify their separation. Is it so, or is it not'so? We have really no 
other practical test to rely upon to decide what are species and what 
are not, but permanence of diagnostic characteristics ; and when that is 
the case, how can we fairly blame any one for separating plants as dis- 
tinct if they appear to possess permanent characteristics, or for retaining 
them as distinct so long as the characteristics assigned to them are not 
demonstrated, by observation and experiment, to be unstable? . At any 
rate, we may rest asssured that in cases of this kind, arguments for syn- 
thesis must be supported by a careful record of observed facts of detail 
to be availing. 
To what extent, may I be allowed to ask, is Viola tricolor to be seen 
in Britain at the present time, beyond the bounds of cultivated land ? 
In classifying lately the plants of North Yorkshire, according to their 
categories of citizenship, the question occurred to me, whether it should 
be placed as a colonist or a native. I, have seen it in two places in 
woods, but in neither case were they clearly aboriginal woods. I should 
like to know what are the experiences, in this matter, of other observers, 
I gathered, in 1860, near the Spital of Glen Shee, in Perthshire, a 
Pansy with the habit of growth of 7. tricolor, but yet apparently with 
a perennial root, and growing in a station suitable for 7. lutea, in a 
meadow near the banks of a stream. The stem is nearly a foot in 
height, branching at the crown of the root, and as succulent and robust 
as in ordinary éricolor. The leaves do not differ notably from those 
of the plant first. described, the lower ones being broadly ovate, and 
the upper ones lanceolate. The lateral lobes of the stipules are linear, 
erecto-patent, or slightly curved; the terminal lobe much larger than 
the others, elongated, spathulate, entire, or somewhat leaf-like, and 
very slightly toothed. The lower peduncles are slender, and about 
three times as long as the leaves; and the sepals are narrowed gra- 
dually, and are conspicuously shorter than the petals. The upper 
petals are broadly obovate in shape, a rich deep purple in colour, mea- 
