The Joyful Botanist: Viola Blues
People will see violets in our woods soon as they are some of the first flowers to bloom in spring. Adam Bigelow photo
When seeking beautiful native wildflowers, I often travel and hike long distances to a special spot to see a rare beauty. Other times, it’s as easy as walking into the front yard.
Some flowers are infrequently found, while some are so common that the word common is in their name. You’ll commonly see common milkflower (Asclepias syriaca), common woodrush (Luzula multiflora) and common juniper even has a form of “common” in its non-common name, i.e. scientific name of Juniperus communis.
When it comes to violets (Viola spp.) there are both common and rare species. And there’s even one that has the word common in its common name, the common blue violet (Viola sororia). This species is so common that it is found blooming in most of our yards. Unless, that is, yours is the type of lawn that only has grass, and no other plants are suffered to live, and the weed killers are liberally sprayed to maintain it. If that is the case for you, dear reader, I’d like to have a deeper discussion about the fetish of the American lawn and how it contributes to biodiversity loss and ecological collapse. We’ll save that for another time.
One thing that is not common, even among violets that have it in their name, is the color blue in flowers. And I mean truly blue. Most of the flowers that we call “blue” are really purple or mauve or lavender. There are very few naturally occurring blue flowers. Even the common blue violet flower is neither blue nor even violet in color, for that matter. The flowers of common blue violet are really purple with a white throat.
Blue, it turns out, is the hardest and most energy intensive color to produce in nature, and it is rare to see a truly blue flower. Somehow flowers that are not really blue get tagged with that descriptor in their name. Flowers of wild blue indigo (Baptisia australis) Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) and blue-eyed grass (Sysrinchium angustifolium) and great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) are all shades of purple. The fruits of blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) and the blue-bead lily (Clintonia borealis) are both a dark purple. Even blueberries (Vaccinium spp.) are really purple — but purpleberries just doesn’t have the same ring.
Violets are among the first flowers to bloom in the springtime, and many of the early ones aren’t even colored violet, let alone blue. Two of the first have yellow flowers and are easy to tell apart. The early yellow violet (Viola rotundifolia) as evidenced from its specific epithet, the second word in a species name, has rounded heart-shaped leaves. The halberd-leaf violet (Viola hastata) has leaves that have a long spear-shaped point. The halberd is actually the name of an ancient spear tip used in battle.
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There are white violets, like the sweet white violet (Viola blanda) whose small flowers pack a large, sweet fragrance that is anything but bland. There’s even a green-violet (Cubelium concolor) that isn’t in the Viola genus but is in the Violaceae family. Many violets take on multiple colors and variegation, producing patterns of stripes and swirls of purple and white.
There are times when the violets’ beautiful glory shines from the forest floor, where I imagine a classical quartet of violins and violas singing out the intro to Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copeland. I may shout “Violá, spring has sprung!” And all my troubles seem to melt away, as if the violets were the cure to the blues.
(The Joyful Botanist leads weekly wildflower walks most Fridays and offers consultations and private group tours through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
