186 LEAFLETS. 



thoughhe mentions it in his monograph (Ann. Lye. N. Y. ii. 147) 

 as a frequent state of the species. It seems to have been rarely 

 collected ; but there is a good sheet of it in U. S. Herb, from 

 Hamlet, N. C, 15 Apr., 1897, by C. S. Williamson, who found 

 it " In dry sand, in pine barrens." There is also a fine specimen 

 from Bluff Spring, Clay Co., Alabama, by Pollard and Maxon, 

 July, 1900, in which the digitate foliage appears as the aestival 

 development in a plant whose earlier leaves were normally pedate. 

 I take this deviation to be not exactly a mutation, but rather an 

 example of atavism. It seems to tell us that a remote ancestor 

 of V. pedata had the foliage of V. digitata. This view has a 

 further warrant in the young plants of V. pedata that spring up 

 from root shoots (its seedlings have never been described) the 

 foliage of which is invariably of the digitate type, only simpler, 

 exhibiting the cuneate figure, but with only about 3 teeth or 

 lobes at summit. 



The analogue of V. digitata in the case of the northwestern 

 V. inornata, Greene, has been both described and figured in 

 Pittonia. < 



V. LABTBCAEKULEA, Greene, Biol. Soc. xiv. 70. Though not 

 quite certain that this well marked violet is a mutate of V. 

 papilionacea, I have hardly a doubt that it is such. Two years 

 ago, by Mr. Steele's guidance I came to the original station for it. 

 I found it plentiful on the one low mound-like elevation of the 

 Potomac flats whence the specimens had come. About the borders 

 of the elevation there was some almost typical V. papilionacea 

 which species, however, is abundant at no great distance, on 

 lower ground, and perfectly normal. There are acres of it on 

 the flats, and I could find no specimens elsewhere than on the 

 elevation referred to, which indicated any approach to V. laete- 

 caerulea. This not surprising ; for the true thing has all the 

 strong characters which I assigned it when I published it. 



V. CONJUGENS, Greene, Pitt. iv. 3. In the original account 

 of this I have said that the corollas are large and blue, recalling 

 those of V. cucullata ; also that young plants, before acquiring 

 the multicipitous caudex and copious leafage and flowering, 

 might pass for V. emarginata — excepting, of course, the pale 



