PURPLE MOUNTAIN VIOLET 
Viola adunca J. E. Smith 
The purple mountain violet is a small plant of the higher altitudes, 
whose flowers are large in proportion to the size of the leaves. It nes- 
tles inthe grass and other herbage as though to hide its lovely blossoms, 
and soon fades in the hot sunshine of early summer. The painting repte- 
sents an unusual dwarfish form of this species, which at lower alti- 
tudes is a taller, longer-stemmed plant, especially when it grows in 
wet, shaded spots. 
Viola adunca has a wide range, being found from New Hampshire 
and New Brunswick to the mountains of New Mexico and Califor- 
nia,and north to Alaska. 
The specimen sketched grew near the shores of Bow Lake, thirty 
miles north of Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada, at an altitude of 6,000 
feet. 
PLATE ISI 
