Jenny, Re Viola sororia/papilionacea: see link below. Re V. sororia/cucullata: cucullata should stick to wetter sites whereas sororia can occur in wet or much drier spots. But that and issues of hairiness are all weak discriminators bewteen several species and infraspecific taxa, partly because they vary geographically, but hairiness also varies within a single plant during a season. Later in the year, features of the cleistogamous seed pods and sepals distinguish these species, but it is not so easy when they are in flower - or at least it is not so easy to describe. The one factor worth considering, though again it is a little imprecise, is how far above the leaves the flowers are held: V. cucullata holds them more or less at the same level as the top of the foliage, but V. sororia holds them above the foliage. Thanks for your good description of the associated flora; in this case it does not exactly answer your question, but the forest aspect suggests V. sororia more than V. cucullata. Must have been a great sight, Mike Here is a link that might be useful: Prior discussion on Viola sororia/papilionacea

I do! Blue with chrome, 36 inches. I was shopping around last year for stove for a 2nd, future retirement house (some mice had gotten into the rock-bottom hotpoint). I considered BlueStar (the house is in the boonies and on propane, and there were some bad BlueStar on propane stories having to do with the oven), NXR, one of the Berta models (eliminated because I do a fair amount of low-heat cooking), the then-new Aga Pro+, and a vintage range (preferably O'K. + M). The cost of another house project gradually worked down the choice set, and I got a deal on the Ilve ($3000 delivered). Wouldn't you know as soon as I pulled the trigger that a O+M, refurbished and set for propane, appeared for $1000. Oh well. On to the Ilve. First off, it's beautiful. It will be the star of a kitchen reno next year. The big burner is fast; simmer is fine. It didn't take long to get used to turning on the burners (holding down for a couple of seconds). The oven is dead on, and I'm still (or will be when I get back to that house) experimenting with the flexibility of the oven burners (top, bottom, both,convection or not, variously combined). Minus: the oven takes awhile to heat. Longer than my 36 inch 15 year old DCS. Odd plus: the symbols on the oven controls don't immediately scream "turn this way if you want to bake brownies." The plus for me is that it moves unhelpful guests out of the kitchen, which is so small that even if I wanted help, there is scarcely the room to turn around. Another odd plus: the legs make it easy to clean underneath. With that, and sealed burners (which are easy to take apart for a deep cleaning when we close up the house), I'm hoping that mice will look elsewhere. A fan runs even in non convection -- it's not terribly loud, and I'm not sure if it's a plus or minus. It does remind us to turn it off when we're finished with it. I've put it through 3 or 4 large parties, and compared to what had been in the house, it was a dream. I've been using the griddle for holding rather than as, well, a griddle so far. I use a lot of large pans, and the spacing works fine. I've cooked on lots of different stoves over the years -- from vintage gas (didn't know it was vintage then!) to electric coil tops, open burners, sealed burners, pro style, and pro. I wouldn't say it is the stove of my dreams, but it is functional and beautiful. I will pick up a small convection oven for small items to get around the long warm up time for small items. Let me know if I can add anything else. I haven't had tons of experience with it, but enough to have a decent sense of what it can do.

A better name for The Best Home Furnishing Company is "The Worst Home Furnishings Company" when it comes to customer service and standing behind their products. Don’t walk away from this brand, RUN QUICKLY! My wife and I live in Minnesota, but have a park model home in Estero, FL. We purchased a Best Home Furnishings recliner in February of 2016 from a furniture store in Naples, FL. Our home in FL is only occupied for two weeks in November, and the months of February and March each year. When we arrived in November of 2018, we noticed that the fabric was cracking on the headrest. Our home is air conditioned all year round, has proper humidity, the windows are tinted, and we have shades that are closed when we are gone. Furniture could not have a better environment to sit in. I took the back of the chair off in November of 2018 and took it to Kanes Furniture where we purchased the chair. My goal was to simply replace the back. We were informed that model had been discontinued so no back was available. That should have been my first clue to how Best Home Furnishings handles a chair that has problems……just discontinue it. The next thing we were told is the chair is out of warranty. I explained that I understand there is a calendar warranty, but further explained how little the chair had been used. I felt that the company should stand behind it due to the little wear and tear this chair had actually incurred, and I was sure there was a problem with the material used to cover this model chair. I totaled up the number of days that anyone could have sat in the chair, and it was 189. We had two Flexsteel recliners in our home in Minnesota that provided over 30 years of trouble free service. Speaks volumes to the old saying, “you get what you pay for”. The furniture store at least listened to me and provided the phone number of manufacturer of the chair, The Best Home Furnishings Company in Ferdinand, Indiana. (at least this was where my call went) When you call with a complaint the first thing you will find is the people who answer the phone have been trained to get rid of you quickly. They have no intention to let you talk to anyone of authority. After a firm back and forth with the lady that answered the phone she finally told me “I am just doing my job”. Really? Discarding a customer with a concern about your product is your job? Fortunately, I was able to push through to someone up the ladder named Pat. Three voice mails and a week later Pat did call me back. From their website and years in business I was sure I would find Best Home Furnishings a reputable company that would be concerned about this product’s failure and would want to have a discussion and find common ground…... NOT THE CASE. Once on the phone with Pat, I repeated what I told Kane’s Furniture and assumed Pat would be familiar with this problem and work with me to find a fair solution……not a chance. Pat is very well trained to hear your concern and then repeat "sorry, it is out of warranty and we can’t help you” multiple times until the discussion ends. He made no effort to keep us as a customer. It was obvious he just wanted to discard us as quickly as he could. The lack of finding a phone number on their website should have been a excellent indicator to me of their customer service. If it is there, they have done a good job of hiding it. Speak with a customer, good heavens, that’s a concept from the 20th century!! The only manner of contact I could find on the site was to email them. Before you purchase any product made by The Best Home Furnishings Company from a furniture store, you may want to visit the Better Business Bureau website and read about them. The BBB shows 32 complaints about this company for various reasons. In addition, on Google they are only able to achieve a 3.6 star rating. I have been self employed for over 40 years, am 65 years old and do not make a habit of writing negative reviews. The Best Home Furnishing Company brags about being in business since 1962 and quality of their furniture building process. It is obvious to me that the original owners of this company are no longer active as I am sure they would have met this problem with a completely different attitude….the attitude that cared about customer satisfaction, quality furniture, and allowed The Best Home Furnishings Company to grow and prosper. Lastly, I will “venture a guess” the reason they took the “cut & run” attitude with me is there are probably hundreds or thousands of customers across America just like me that have a Best Chair with the same defective cover. Class Action Lawsuit time? Let's band together and send a message. When a quality company has a problem with a product, they either extend the warranty or have a recall to make sure people get taken care of. Not run from the problem like The Best Home Furnishings Company is doing. Most successful companies want repeat customers. Shame on you! Dave Nolander

Sippy_south, you may want to start a new thread with that question so everyone sees it. Otherwise only people reading this countertop thread can see it. As for the various brands of quartz - I don't know that there's really any difference, other than the various colors available and what each manufacturer considers a quality or warranty issue. One person on this forum had problems with Cambria - there was major "resin pooling" on her countertop (do a search for that term), and Cambria wouldn't replace it. I bought Zodiaq because I liked one of its colors the best.