BOTANY. 563 
CLEISTOGENOUS FLOWERS IN VIOLA STRIATA. — When we take 
Gray’s Manual, and find no mention of a striking fact, we con- 
clude that what is not known to so excellent a botanist must be 
new. Yet to me the production of cleistogenous flowers by Viola 
striata is so old a fact that only its omission from the manual 
leads me now to refer to it.* . 
The Manual confines the production of these flowers to the acau- 
lescent species which it says “produce apetalous flowers from 
underground stolons during summer.” V. striata belongs to the 
leafy-stemmed section, and produces an abundance of these flow- 
ers from midsummer till frost. In early spring the petaloid 
flowers come out from the axils of the four lowest nodes; six or 
eight nodes are then formed, in which the axillary bud is devel- 
oped into a branchlet instead of a flower, and all the succeeding 
nodes bear leaves with apetalous flowers from the axils, which 
produce seed very profusely. 
Physiologically speaking there is nothing remarkable in this. 
As suggested in my remarks on Fragaria ‘‘ Gilmani” some years 
ago, a stolon or runner is but an upright caulis which has lost the 
power of erection, and characters common to one easily appear 
in the other with little or no modification.—Tuomas MEEHAN. 
Srpacnum anp Hypnum Peat.— The opinion seems to have 
been somewhat prevalent that peat does not accumulate abun- 
dantly in limestone regions, but this is not true of large portions 
of some of the northern interior states. For example, all the peat 
of Iowa is in an eminently limestone region and the water taken 
out of any of the marshes shows a strong reaction for lime by 
proper chemical tests. 
From my own observations I believe that Sphagnum peat does 
not accumulate in limestone regions, but that the peat mosses of 
such regions all belong to the genus Hypnum. I have found no 
other moss entering into the composition of Iowa peat. 
Another fact observed in this connection has doubtless much 
Significance, namely ; the Ericace are almost entirely wanting in 
Towa, and no plants of that order have yet been observed by 
myself in or about these Hypnum marshes. The principal plant 
assisting the Hypnum in the production of peat is a kind of grass. 
Should one go north from Iowa or Illinois into the metamorphic 
"Ei vamanta e D NS 
*It is well known in Viola canina of Europe, and here in V. Canadensis.—EDS. 
* 
