214 , LEAFLETS. 



best specimens before me are of my own collecting in 1877, and 

 a sbeet by Mr. Metcalfe in 1905. 



Senecio QiTAEREirs is a name that may perhaps be found tena- 

 ble in place of that of my second ,5. prionophyllus namely that 

 of page 212 preceding. 



New Species of Viola. 



During the three seasons last past, in relation to our acaules- 

 cent Tiolets I have done some field study, some collecting, and 

 not a little silent reflection upon the whole subject, and not so 

 much of writing and publication. The defining of new forms, 

 as well as wise or unwise commentation upon many somewhat 

 newly published I have for the most part left to a number of 

 people who, all of them new in this field as compared with my- 

 self, are not yet checked by lack of confidence in the suflBciency 

 of their own knowledge. 



In the course of some journeyings made in the month of May, 

 1902, through Western Maryland, northern Ohio and southern 

 Michigan, I took something like alarm at the great number of 

 undescribed violets that I encountered ; and to these were added 

 in my thought not a few forms common in the valley of the 

 Potomac near Washington which I had not yet dared to publish, 

 though I had been studying them, but only too interruptedly, 

 since the year 1896. 



One or two of the settled conclusions I seem to have reached 

 during these three seasons of more silent study I may here briefly 

 state. 



I think that the number of valid species of so-called acaules- 

 cent violets in the United States is very great; that it may 

 amount, eventually, to some hundreds. 



I have not the least faith in the existence of any hybrids in 

 this group. Certainly not one case has been proven. Quite a 

 number have been guessed at ; not one of them with what to me 

 is the least show of reason or probability. That which to any 

 scientific mind should preclude even any guessing at hybrids, or 

 almost any hope of finding such in the field is the simple fact 

 that 99 out of 100 seeds of these plants are from flowers that 



