326 VIOLA ARENARIA AS A BRIMSH PLANT. 
father and son, have noticed a small and remarkable-looking Violet 
growing upon what is called, from its appearance, the Sugar Limestone, 
at the upper end of Teesdale, on the north side of the river. In 1861, 
the younger of those gentlemen first observed the flowers of this Violet, 
and transplanted some of it to his garden at York. It produces per- 
fect flowers for a short time in the month of May; but afterwards, 
although seeds are ripened, the flowers are without any petals. It re- 
mains unchanged by cultivation, except that then it produces a few 
branches ; that is to say, the axillary flowering branches of its rosette, 
which are usually very short, become two, or possibly three inches long, 
procumbent, and rather closely leafy. The rootstock is nearly vertical. 
In the wild state the whole of a flowering plant is usually scarcely two 
~ inches across; in one cultivated plant it has exceeded five inches. It 
. may be characterized as follows :— 
E a arenaria, De Cand. ; anther-spur very narrowly lancet-shaped, 
corolla-spur blunt, leaves roundly cordate, flowering branches illar 
from a short flowerless central rosette of leaves, peduncles, young leaves, 
and aeute capsules downy, petals broadly obcordate, lower petal with 
many-branched veins, calycine appendages broad, squarish, persistent. 
V. arenaria, De Cand. Fl. Fr. iv. p. 806 (1805); Prod. i. 298; 
Fries, Mant. iii. p. 121; Herb. Norm. vi. p. 26 (spec) ; Koch, Syn: 
ed. 2, p. 91; Gren. and Godr. Fl. Fr. i. p. 178; Ledeb. Fl. Ros. i 
254. loa Lith 
V. Allionii, * Pio De Viola, 20, t. 1 (1813) ;" Reichb. Icon. Cent. 
i p. 58, t. 72; Teones Fl. Germ. iii. t. 9, f. 4500; Fl. Germ. Exsic. 
n. 1583 (spec.); Bertol. Fl. Ital. ii. 707. Bon 
V. arenaria is known from small forms of F. canina and V. vivi- 
niana, by its more compact habit, spreading shortly ovate stipules, the 
coat of fine down on the peduncles and the young leaves, ` z 
downy acute capsules. It agrees in its mode of growth with F. rist- 
niana, with which the many and very much branched and anastomo- 
sing veins of the lower petal connect it. Aecording to Fries the corolla 
is lilac, Mr. Backhouse says pale slaty-blue ; Grenier calls it blue; i^" 
C. C. BABINGTON. © 
