Downy Yellow Violet (Viola pubescens) is a large 
very handsome violet that prefers, for its habitat, dry 
hilly woods, often by the side of rushing brooks, but 
not usually where the soil is moist. 
The Yellow Violet is one of the tallest members of 
the family, its stem ranging from 6 to 18 inches in 
length. Both the stems and the leaves are woolly-hairy. 
There are from two to four leaves growing from the 
stem near its summit; they are heart-shaped, pointed, 
and either toothed or scalloped. The flowers, rising on 
slender peduncles from the axils of the leaves, are 
rather large and bright yellow; the two lateral petals 
are heavily bearded and the lower one is handsomely 
veined with purple. These beards compel visiting in¬ 
sects to brush against the stigma and then against the 
anthers before reaching the nectar in the short spur. 
Most of the violets, during the summer, have apeta- 
lous or cleistogamous flowers on short peduncles from 
the root; these never open, but are fertilized in the 
bud. Common from N. S. to Manitoba and southwards. 
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