Viola ID

[razvan chisu]

I have this Viola for up to 10 years, seeding itself around the garden. All I remember is that I have it from Holland, when I took some seeds while on a school exchange-trip. Can anyone help me with a name? It started flowering about a fortnight ago, and will go on all summer.

[Anthony Darby]

Looks very like a very good form of Viola tricolor [Heart'sease or Wild Pansy]?

[razvan chisu]

I've seen wild V. tricolor, but the flowers are smaller than the ones on this plant...

[Maggi Young]

In the UK it is true that Viola tricolor comes in many colour forms and sizes, from very tiny flowers to quite large blooms that are almost the same size as viola cultivars so I expect that this variability happens in other countries, too. Yours is a most attractive form, Razvan and it is good that it has persisted for ten years already.

[hadacekf]

Here is a picture of a wild growing Viola tricolor in Carinthia (Austria).  This widespread species is immensely variable. It grows in subalpine grassland and screes, from northern Spain to Crimea. I have not found it easy in my garden!

[Maggi Young]

No Franz, it is not easy in the garden here,  either,  it is a little flower with a wild heart that wants to be free ! We often see the best ones in places where the soil  has been disturbed a little  but is not too rich.
I learned its name as "Heart's ease.".. about the first plant name I learned as a child, I think! I found it a lot easier to say than "an enemies" I still say that instead of anemones, even today.

[razvan chisu]

Browsing the internet I found out the cultivars of V. tricolor and cornuta look very much alike. So maybe it could be cornuta. Is this easier to mantain in cultivation?

[David Shaw]

Razvan, are you sure that you mean Viola cornuta? The species is a plain lilac blue colour with variations to white. I am not aware of multicoloured cultivars but may be wrong on this. V. cornuta is identifiable by its colour and a rear facing horn behind the flower.

I saw this plant on top of a bone dry shale ridge in Andora and thought that it could be difficult to grow as a garden plant. Fortunately I was wrong in this and have found it to be a very easy and delightful little plant to have in a sunny position and setting plenty of seed.

[Anthony Darby]

Isn't it amazing that a tiny wee plant can generate such a discussion? Brilliant. I'm losing a fighting battle with blue violas in my garden, so much so, that I think I need to introduce some of the rare local fritillary butterflies, whose caterpillars feed on Viola spp., so they can keep them under control! Fat chance of success, as the blackies and robins would soon find the caterpillars

[razvan chisu]

That is the reason I was asking. I searched images.google.com for both species and many of the cultivars look very much alike.

[Lesley Cox]

I'd stake my life on Razvan's pic being V. tricolor. Believe me, I have 28 million of them in and around my garden having once made the bad mistake of offering to grow a few for a friend who made pressed flower pictures. That was in a previous garden and when I moved (twice) there was always a seedling or two that came with me, uninvited. They are roughly similar in size of flower, some a bit bigger, but in every pssible colour and combo of colours, many exactly like the one above. They look extremely pretty among the lettuces and beans...and lilies...and meconopsis...and saxifragas...and

[Lesley Cox]

Oh, and in the lawn and in the cracks in the path...

[razvan chisu]

well actually, mine has travelled as well. the photos are from my new garden and the viola came with a clump of iris pumila. but I do hopw that in time, there will be 28 million of them. i wouldn't mind at all.
thanks for the id, though.