From Blue to Purple 



and with longer leaves than wide in swampy woodlands The 

 heart-shaped, saw-edged leaves, folded toward the centre when 

 newly put forth, and the five-petalled, bluish-purple, golden- 

 hearted blossom are too familiar for more detailed description 

 from the three-cornered stars of the elastic capsules, the se< 

 scattered abroad. (Illustration, p. \6.) 



Beards on the spurred lower petal and the two side petals 

 give the bees a foothold when they turn head downward as 

 some must, to suck nectar. This attitude enables them to 

 receive the pollen dusted on their abdomens, when they jar 

 the flower, at a point nearest their pollen-collecting hairs "It is 

 also an economical advantage to the flower which can sift the 

 pollen downward on the bee instead of exposing it to the 

 pollen-eating interlopers. Among the latter may be classed the 

 humblebees and butterflies whose long lips and tongues pilfer 

 ad libitum. " For the proper visitors of the bearded violets " says 

 Professor Robertson, "we must look to the small bees, among 

 which the Osmias are the most important." 



When science was younger and hair splitting an uncom- 

 mon indulgence of botanists, the Earlv Blue Violet {Viola pal- 

 metto) was thought to be simply a variety of the common purple 

 violet, whose heart-shaped leaves frequently show a tendency to 

 divide into lobes. But the earlv blue violet, however roundish or 

 heart-shaped its early leaves may be, has the later ones variously 

 divided into from three to thirteen lobes, often almost as much 

 cut on the sides as the leaves of the bird's-foot violet. In dry 

 soil, chiefly in the woods, this violet may be found from Southern 

 Canada westward to Minnesota, and south to northern boundaries 

 of the Gulf States. Only its side petals are bearded to form foot- 

 rests for the insects that search for the deeply secreted nectar. 

 Many butterflies visit this flower. On entering it a bee must first 

 touch the stigma before any fresh golden pollen is released from 

 the anther cone, and cross-fertilization naturally results. 



In shale and sandy soil, even in the gravel of hillsides, one 

 finds the narrowly divided, finely cut leaves and the bicolored 

 beardless blossom of the Bird's-foot Violet (/ '. pedata), pale bluish 

 purple on the lower petals, dark purple on one or two uppei 

 and with a heart of gold. The large, velvety, pansy-like bi 

 and the unusual foliage which rises in rather dense tints are suffi- 

 cient to distinguish the plant from its numerous kin. This spe- 

 cies produces no cleistogamous or blind (lowers. Frequently the 

 bird's-foot violet blooms a second time, in autumn, a delightful 

 eccentricity of this family. The spur of its lower petal is long 

 and very slender, and. as might be expected, the longest-tongued 

 bees and butterflies are its most frequent visitors. These receive 

 the pollen on the base of the proboscis. 



29 



