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Blue Violet

jekeesl (south-central Arkansas)

13 years ago

I found a small colony of bearded violets today in a sunny ditch that stays fairly wet. The plants are young, and only 3" to 4" tall. Stems are smooth. Leaves not well developed, but in shape shown below, or some a bit more pointed. There are no hairs on these plants, except for the beards. The flowers are about the size of my thumbnail, and beard hairs appear rounded at the tips. Of the roughly 21 Viola varieties in Arkansas, the best candidates are V. cucullata, V. nephrophylla, and V. walteri. Sources report that the distinguishing characteristic for V. cucullata is a beard that has club-shaped hairs. Our other bearded species have hairs with sharp ends. Are the hairs in the third photo club shaped? Is this specimen V. cucullata, or something else?

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Comments (5)

lycopus
13 years ago
An important detail with violets is whether or not the stems are leafy or the leaves are all basal. The hairs look club-shaped so V. cucullata is a good candidate provided all of the leaves are basal.
jekeesl (south-central Arkansas)
Original Author
13 years ago
Lycopus, thanks for your reponse. It appears that all of the leaves are basal.

I emailed a separate enquiry to a local botanist. He said that the blue violets were difficult, without a specimen in hand, because they're so variable. Although USDA does list V. cucullata as present in Arkansas, the Arkansas Vascular Floral Committee does not recognize it on their list of Arkansas taxa. That botanist thought that V. sororia was a possibility. However, the references I've found mostly agree that V. sororia has ciliate sepal margins, straight beard hairs, and flowers that sit close to the leaves. Those three characteristics are not typical of the specimens in the photos below.

Do you think V. sororia is the best candidate? I may have to collect a sample for review by the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission in Little Rock.
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LOL! When I saw the title for this thread, the image that popped into my mind was my grandmother in the early 1960s showing me ‘the king on his throne washing his feet’ that is hidden in the flower of violets! Wild violets grew in damp places in the pastures at my maternal grandparents‘ farm. The violets stopped spreading when the soil conditions got drier. When we moved here 20 years ago, there were some violets under the trees - at first I left them alone for nostalgia reasons but they multiplied a bit too fast so I eventually removed them... There are a lot of houses around here that have lots of violets in lawns, particularly in damp and/or shady areas. Most end up trying to remove them - with varying degrees of success! (To see ‘the king on his throne washing his feet’ take a single violet flower, turn it so that the three large petals are upright and the other two petals curve downward over the sort of bulbous bit at the back of the flower. Remove the two petals over this structure. Then you can see the fat green pistil with the gold of the pollen at the top - that is the ‘king’ with his gold crown... The three large petal behind him is the ‘throne’ and the bulbous bit at the base is the basin where he is washing his feet! :-) If you have violets and young children or grandchildren, try looking for the king in the violet flowers - I’ll bet it amuses them!)
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lycopus
13 years ago
Viola sororia will usually key out very close to V. cucullata but the differences in the shape of the beard hairs are as you've described. I will say that the specimens of V. cucullata that I have seen had rather long peduncles compared to V. sororia. You might wait a few weeks before collecting a sample as violets can look different later in the season from when they first emerge. If you collect it press at least one of them as a voucher in case it is V. cucullata.
jekeesl (south-central Arkansas)
Original Author
13 years ago
That's good advice. I have a bad habit of trying to determine species from plants that aren't yet mature. I did get a reply from one of our botanists this morning. They thought the photos were interesting enough, that they forwarded them to a recognized authority in the genus for comment. They also promised to provide a press, since I've sent them photos of several other non-typical species for our area.
FIRELILY
13 years ago
I believe these violets are called Wild Violet, Viola or Viola odorata... they grow on my farm in zone 3a. North Central Alberta

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