JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 97 



SOME NEW VIOLETS. 



BY J. M. DICKSON. 



For some years it has been strongly impressed upon field 

 workers that the title Viola palmata var. cucuUata, as generally 

 applied, covered a somewhat wide diversity of forms, but not having 

 access to specialists, or monographs covering the genus, we were 

 compelled to allow several seemingly distinct forms of acaulescent 

 violets to remain under this extremely variable variety. Desiring 

 more light, we sent several specimens to Mr. J. M. Macoun, Assis- 

 tant Naturalist, Geological Survey, Ottawa, who forwarded the 

 material to Dr. E. L. Greene, Professor of Botany at the Catholic 

 University, Washington, D. C, U. S. From the plants collected at 

 Hamilton and at Ottawa by Mr. Macoun, Dr. Greene has described 

 at least eight distinct species, seven of which are new. 



The Hamilton species, so far as known to the writer, are : 



*Viola cucullata. Ait. ; Greene, Pittonia, Vol. III., 143. 



"This is a very glabrous plant, of tender and succulent herbage, 

 decidedly cucullate leaves, light green in color, flowers very pale 

 blue, the petals with a spot of darker violet just above the white 

 basal part or claw. The cleistogamous flowers are borne on greatly 

 elongated very slender peduncles which are strictly erect, both the 

 growing and full grown ovaries being a half-foot or more above 

 ground among the leaf-blades. The capsules are very long and 

 quite prismatic, /. e., of equal thickness from one end to the other, 

 and distinctly though obtusely trigonous." Common in bog 

 meadows. 



*Viola populifolia, Grv.'ene ; Pittonia, Vol. III., 337. 



" An acaulescent blue-flowered woodland violet akin to V. 

 cuspidata, but smaller, the petioles of the early leaves densely 

 villous-hitsute, the blade from broad-cordate in the very earliest and 

 smallest, to deltoid or deltoid-reniform in those accompanying the 



* Illustrated by J. M. Macoun in "Notes on Some Ottawa Violets," 



