Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 217 



DOWNY YELLOW VIOLET (Viola pubescens) is 

 a large very handsome violet that prefers, for its 

 habitat, dry hilly woods, often by the side of rushing 

 brooks, but not usually where the soil is moist. 



In a certain piece of woodland, a small brook tum- 

 bles its way noisily along its rocky bed. Alders spar- 

 ingly line both banks of the brook, banks that slope 

 steeply upward on either side. In one place along 

 it, in a place the size of an ordinary room, is a colony 

 of Yellow Violets, growing so closely together that 

 one can barely see the ground between the leaves. 

 Directly over this wild flower bed, a pair of Wood 

 Thrushes make their home, year after year. Ordinar- 

 ily Yellow Violets bloom in April and May, but in 

 this particular case their bloom is delayed until the 

 latter part of May, the time when their feathered 

 neighbors have their home also completed. 



The Yellow Violet is one of the tallest members of 

 the family, its stem ranging from 6 to 18 inches in 

 length. Both the stems and the leaves are wooly 

 hairy. There are from two to four leaves growing 

 from the stem near its summit; they are heart-shap- 

 ed, pointed, and either toothed or scalloped. The 

 flowers, rising on slender peduncles from the axils 

 of the leaves, are rather large and bright yellow; the 

 two lateral petals are heavily bearded and the lower 

 one is handsomely veined with purple. These beards 

 compel visiting insects to brush against the stigma 

 and then against the anthers before reaching the 

 nectar in the short spur. 



Most of the violets, during the summer, have apeta- 

 lous or cleistogamous flowers on short peduncles from 

 the root; these never open, but are fertilized in the 

 bud. Closely allied species when growing near each 

 other, often form hybrids that are confusing except 

 to the expert botanist. 



SMOOTH YELLOW VIOLET (Viola scabriuscula) 

 is similar to the former but, normally, is smooth or 

 only very slightly hairy. Yellow Violets are found 

 from N. S. to Manitoba and southwards to Md. and 

 Kans. 



