354 



rounded spur, the linear usually with along slender spur, often of great 

 length, as in the pansies." 



3. Relation of Nectary and Colour of Flower. Mr. Forbes is dis- 

 posed to consider that gieater importance is due to colour in specific 

 distinctions than is usually assigned to it. 



" In the genus Viola blue, yellow, purple and white are the colours seen. The blue 

 may again be divided into purple-blue and sky-blue, each passing abnormally into white, 

 but the respective whites must not be confounded. The purple-blue may also pass 

 abnonnally into rose ; but the sky-blue, as far as I am aware, never does. These dis- 

 tinctions are of importance in the investigation of nearly allied species, such as V. ca- 

 nina and V. montana. The yellow passes on the one hand into white ; on the other, 

 into purple. White is rarely the normal colour of a species of violet. The lancet- 

 shaped nectary is chiefly associated with blue flowers, sometimes with the yellows pass- 

 ing into white, never with the yellows which pass into purple. They have always 

 linear nectaries. The violets, which are normally white, derived from blue, have al- 

 ways lanceolate or rotund appendages, never linear. The odorous violets have always 

 purple-blue, or its derivative white flowers, and always lancet-shaped appendages, but 

 the colour does not necessarily imply the odour. The yellows which do not pass into 

 purple have always lancet-shaped appendages. Among the dog-violets we find the lancet- 

 shaped appendages lengthening in proportion to the mixture of purple in the blue, and 

 the contrary in cerulean flowers, and their derivatives milk-white. All violets may be 

 abnormally white, but the form of the nectary peculiar to the species, does not change 

 with the change of colour in the individual." — ^p. 79. 



4. Relations of Nectary and Leaf. The cordate leaf in violets 

 is generally associated with a lancet-shaped nectary, which is always 

 found when the leaf is lanceolate or truly ovate, and sometimes when 

 through being deeply lobed a cordate or rotundo-cordate leaf becomes 

 pinnato-palmate. " A iew cordate-leaved violets have linear appen- 

 dages, and some of the pinnato-palmate ; but all the pansies, or violets 

 with ovato-spathulate leaves have linear nectaries." In the stemless 

 species with cordate leaves, "as the leaf becomes more and more 

 rounded there is generally a tendency in the nectary to become shorter 

 and shorter, whilst the contrary is often the case in such as have stems. 

 Rotund appendages are associated only with reniform- cordate leaves." 



Mr. Forbes gives a tabular view of " the relations of leaf and nectary 

 in seventy-one species of violets." 



5. Relation of Nectary to Bractioles and Stipules. The relation 

 borne by the bractiole to the nectary is one of size, not of position, — 

 the linear nectary being generally associated with minute bractioles : 

 the stipules " are almost always large when the nectary is linear." 



6. Relation of Nectary to Stem. In the arborescent, and gene- 

 rally in the shrubby violets the nectary is lanceolate ; in the more her- 

 baceous stemmed species it is usually linear ; while in most of the 



