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beth_n_kali

Can anyone identify this wild violet .. please?

Beth_n_Kali
20 years ago

I found these growing on a bank in my yard . I've stopped mowing a lot of places the old owners used too and have had several native violets come up. I cant seem to find out what these are though ? Do wild ( native ) violets cross ? The plants were doing very well until my terrier went on a great mole hunt last summer , but are making a good recovery

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Comments (4)

  • Mike Hardman
    20 years ago

    It is V. sororia (or a close ally, but V. sororia is most likely).

    The 'broken' flowers have been seen before on V. sororia.
    For instance, Jeana Prewitt (Tennessee) found some, she and I discussed them a couple of years ago, and ended up naming the form 'Jeapurrs' (rhymes with jeepers-creepers).

    It is good to see your plants looking so well; such healthy foliage. Sometimes, plants (not just violets) with pale-spalshed flowers get that way because of a viral infection, which can manifest itself in the leaves sometimes too. And that can make the whole plant weak; not in your case though. So the colouration of your violets is wither not caused by a virus, or it is due to a virus that is well-tolerated (at least so far).

    Your dog digging them up will probably have done the population little harm, since new plants will grow from pieces of the rhizomes.

    In case you are not familar with it, V. sororia has two nicely finely violet/white speckled cultivars called 'Freckles' and 'Speckles' (depending on which colour forms the dots).
    And there is a form with white flowers with a blue centre (V. sororia f. priceana, the Confederate violet) and a similar one with pinky-purple centre, 'Alice Witter'. There are also pure white forms and at least one pinky-purple one. They all tend to breed true from seed; it would be interesting to see/know if your colour form also comes true from seed.

  • pmkgero
    20 years ago

    I have trillions of these throughout my yard. Mostly under trees and such. I have different shades of color but no stripes or speckles. They are impossible to get rid of, so we just live with them.

  • Jojan
    20 years ago

    We have 'wild' violets all over the yard. Some are dark purple, some white with a touch of purple in the center and some are yellow, a few are lavender or light purple.
    They just make a more colorful lawn in the spring along with the patches of 'gold coins' (dandilions) and Money Plants that grow in most of the shaded parts of the lawn.
    We also have masses of tiny blue flowers that bloom in the first week of April, have no idea what they are, but at times it looks like our lawn is bright blue instead of green. Isn't Mother Nature wonderful???

  • nora_in_vancouver
    19 years ago

    I love those violets, but they are not the same as the ones I am trying to ID. On the tiny blue flowers Jojan mentions, we have Veronica filiformis in lawns early spring; there are other weedy veronicas in different parts of the country.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Veronica filiformis

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