-68 VIOL ACE JE. CLEOME. 



VIOLA. 



C. platycarpa Torr. Bpt. Wilkes 235, t. 2. Pubescent and glandular : 

 1-2 feet high: leaves 3-foliolate; leaflets broadly oblong to lanceolate, 6-8 

 lines long: flowers very showy, bright yellow: sepals linear- setaceous, vil- 

 lous: petals broadly lanceolate, without claws: pods elliptical, 8-10 lines 

 long, stipe about as lon^ as the pod, equalling the pedicels; style slender, 

 about lines long. Hillsides, John Day valley, Oregon to northern Cali- 

 fornia a-id westera c Nevada. 



ORDER IX. VIOLACE^E S. F. Gray Nat. Arr. ii, 667. 



Sepals 5, persistent, imbricated in the bud. Petals 5, alter- 

 nate with the petals hypogynous, on short claws, commonly 

 unequal. Stamens 5. alternate with the petals, inserted on the 

 torus: anthers adnate, introrse 2-celled, opening longitudinally: 

 filaments broad, elongated beyond the anthers, ovary 1-celled, 

 3-valved, with 3 parietal placentae, several ovuled. Style 

 usually declined with an oblique cucullate stigma. Seeds ana- 

 tropous with a straight embryo in the axis of fleshy albumen. 

 Ours are low herbs with watery somewhat acid juice, alternate 

 leaves with persistent stipules and axillary flowers. 



1 VIOLA Tourn. Inst. 419, t. 236 L. Gen. n. 1007. 



Perennial or annual herbs with alternate stipulate leaves and 

 mostly one-flowered axillary 2-bracteolate peduncles. Early flow- 

 ers usually showy and often infertile, tfre later ones often cleistog- 

 amous and more fertile. Sepals more or less auricled at base. 

 Petals unequal, the lower one produced at base into a nectarifer- 

 erous sac or spur, the others of about equal length. Filaments 

 very short or none : anthers connivent but distinct, at most 

 lightly coherent, the two anterior each with a dorsal appendage 

 or spur projecting into the spur or sac of the lower petal. Style 

 often flexuous below, enlarged upward. Capsule usually ovoid, 

 crustaceous or coriaceous : valves several-seeded. Seeds obovoid 

 or globular, smooth. 



Ours are all perennial with part or all of the stipules more or 

 less scarious, never emulating the blade of the leaf. The two 

 upper petals turned backward, and the lateral ones turned for- 

 ward, toward the lower one, or merely spreading. 



* Strictly acaulescent, the leaves and scapes directly from root- 

 stocks: gibbous-clavate with inflexed or truncate and beardless summit 

 and an introrsely beaked or short-pointed small proper stigma. 



- Rootstock thick and comparatively short, never filiform or pro- 

 ducing runners or stolons: spur of the corolla only saccate : cleistoga- 

 mous flowers abundant and short peduncled. 



V. COgnata Greene Pitt, iii, 145. V. cucullata of avthors as to our 

 plants. Acaulescent; rootstocks short and thick: leaves long-petioled, 

 smooth or more or less pubescent, slightly fleshy, cordate with a broad 

 sinus, the earliest often reniform and the later acute or acuminate, cre- 

 nately toothed: scapes 2-10 inches high, about equalling the leaves: pet- 

 als 5-8 lines long, blue or violet, all villous at base, the three lower very 

 strongly go: spur only saccate: style smooth ; stigma small, beaked or 



