164 VIRGINIA 



an umbrella among the dripping bushes, 

 seeing what I could see, thinking more of 

 birds than of blossoms, when behold ! I 

 stumbled upon a second novelty, still an- 

 other yellow violet, suggestive neither of V. 

 pubescens nor of anything else that I had 

 ever seen. It went into the box (I could 

 find but two or three plants), and then I 

 felt that it might rain never so hard, the 

 day was saved. 



A hurried reference to the Manual brought 

 me no satisfaction, and I dispatched one of 

 the plants forthwith to a friendly authority, 

 for whom a comparison with herbarium 

 specimens would supply any conceivable 

 gaps in his own knowledge. " Here is some- 

 thing not described in Gray's Manual," I 

 wrote to him, " unless," I added (not to be 

 caught napping, if I could help it), " it be 

 V. pubescens scabriuscuia.'^ And I made 

 bold to say further, in my unscientific enthu- 

 siasm, that whatever the plant might or 

 might not turn out to be, I did not believe 

 it was properly to be considered as a variety 

 of V. pubescens. In appearance and habit 

 it was too unlike that familiar Massachusetts 

 species. If he could see it growing, I was 



