MITELLA VIOLACEA IL Sp.
Stem from a perennial rootstock, slender, about 3 dm. high, leafless, finely puberulent and with a few long silky hairs. Basal leaves on petioles 5-10 cm. long, the blade and petiole sparingly hispid, broadly cordate in outline,-slightly 5-7-lobed with rounded finely crenate lobes; raceme very short with small nearly sessile flowers ; flowers about 2 mm. in diameter ; sepals ovate, rather ob tuse, very thin and petal-like, veined and tinged with violet ; petals oblanceolate, entire or slightly 3-cleft, a little exceeding the sepals (Plate 305, figs. 1-2).
In the form of the flower this stands nearest to M. diversifolia Greene. The sepals and petals are of the same size and form, but the former are generally tinged with violet and the latter less deeply 3-toothed, or entire. The leaves are broader and rounder
in outline, the lobes shallower and rounder and evidently crenate. In other words the leaves are almost identical with those of M. pentandra Hook., from which the plant is easily distinguished by the small, nearly sessile flowers and the form of the petals. With _AT trifida, which also has 3-cleft petals, it can scarcely be con fused, as that species has reniform leaves, larger flowers, and the segments of the petals are filiform.
Type : J. H. Flodman, no. 527, Spanish Basin in the Madi son Range, Montana, July, II, 1896, altitude 6000 ft.