The capsules produced by these flowers bury
themselves in the soil, if it be loose enough, and there mature themselves.
(8/6. Vaucher says 'Hist. Phys. des Plantes d'Europe' tome 3 1844 page 309, that
V. hirta and collina likewise bury their capsules. See also Lecoq 'Geograph.
Bot.' tome 5 1856 page 180.) Lecoq says that it is only these latter capsules
which possess elastic valves; but I think this must be a misprint, as such
valves would obviously be of no use to the buried capsules, but would serve to
scatter the seeds of the sub-aerial ones, as in the other species of Viola. It
is remarkable that this plant, according to Delpino, does not produce
cleistogamic flowers in one part of Liguria, whilst the perfect flowers are
there abundantly fertile (8/7. 'Sull' Opera, la Distribuzione dei Sessi nelle
Piante' etc. 1867 page 30.); on the other hand, cleistogamic flowers are
produced by it near Turin. Another fact is worth giving as an instance of
correlated development: I found on a purple variety, after it had produced its
perfect double flowers, and whilst the white single variety was bearing its
cleistogamic flowers, many bud-like bodies which from their position on the
plant were certainly of a cleistogamic nature. They consisted, as could be seen
on bisecting them, of a dense mass of minute scales closely folded over one
another, exactly like a cabbage-head in miniature.
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