Common Blue Violet (Viola papilionacea)

Common Blue Violet
(probably Viola papilionacea)

This particular Common Blue Violet (Viola papilionacea or Viola sororia) is ALWAYS our first spring wildflower. It grows in a microclimate, a crack in a large, south-facing rock. In the winter, leafless trees allow much sunshine to warm the rock, but it's shaded in the summer so the violet doesn't get too dry and die. I first found this little violet about ten years ago. It's bloomed every year since, though our unusually mild winter this year means it's blooming a lot earlier.

Viola papilionacea is a native perennial that grows throughout most of eastern and central North America. Both flowers and leaves are highly variable. Flowers can range from white, to blue, to deep purple. They can also be variegated. The taxonomy of the plant is also questionable and some authors place the plant as a variety of V. sororia. V. pranticola is another synonym. Finally, the Common Blue Violet can hybridize with at least four other species of Viola.

Bees and other insects do sometimes visit and pollinate violets, but they have no reliable pollinators. Hence, violets also produce cleistogamous flowers, flowers that never open and are automatically self-pollinating.

Nature Notes

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Common Blue Violet (Viola papilionacea)

Common Blue Violet (Viola papilionacea)

Our homestead award for first wildflower bloom of the spring goes to a Common Blue Violet (Viola papilionacea or Viola sororia), and I am not surprised. I first found this little violet several years ago. It has garnered the first bloom of the spring award every year since. The violet is growing out of a crack in the south-facing side of a large (small house sized) rock. Sun shines on the rock face and the rock retains the sun's warmth creating a microclimate that allows this particular violet to bloom a week or more ahead of its more conventionally located kin.


Viola papilionacea is a native perennial that grows throughout most of eastern and central North America. Both flowers and leaves are highly variable. Flowers can range from white, to blue, to deep purple. They can also be variegated. The taxonomy of the plant is also questionable and some authors place the plant as a variety of V. sororia. V. pranticola is another synonym. Finally, the Common Blue Violet can hybridize with at least four other species of Viola.


Bees and other insects do sometimes visit and pollinate violets, but they have no reliable pollinators. Hence, violets also produce cleistogamous flowers, flowers that never open and are automatically self-pollinating.

Nature Notes

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Common Blue Violet (Viola papilionacea)

Bi-Color Bird's Foot Violet (Viola pedata)

(Photo: 3/27/09 by Marvin)

Bird's Foot Violet (Viola pedata)

Bird's Foot Violet is a very common wildflower in the Ozark Mountains. It's preference for rocky and dry woodlands means it finds much of the Ozarks ideal habitat. Bi-color bird's foot violets are less common than solid colored, but one still sees many of them. The cluster pictured above was growing at the top of the first hill along our road out -- about the same place where the census taker abandoned her car and decided to walk the rest of the way down to our place -- definitely rocky.

According to Wildflowers of Missouri:

Flowering - April - June and sometimes again in late fall.
Habitat - Rocky or dry open woods, slopes, ridges, prairies, glades, roadsides.
Origin - Native to U.S.
Other info. - This is a striking and easily identifiable species. The flowers are very large and the leaves are finely divided and are similar to a birds foot. The common name for the plant is "Bird's Foot Violet".

Other Sources and Information:
Discover Life
Missouri Botanical Gardens

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Bi-Color Bird's Foot Violet (Viola pedata)

Bird's Foot Violet (Viola pedata)

Bird's Foot Violet (Viola pedata)

Normally a spring-blooming wildflower, a few bird's foot violets along the road out insist upon late summer or early fall blooming too.

Additional Resources:
Discover Life
Missouri Plants
Missouri Botanical Garden

Previous Post: April 9, 2007

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Bird's Foot Violet (Viola pedata)

Another Violet

Photo from 3/14/08


Violet (Viola triloba)

The flowers on this violet are virtually impossible (for me) to tell apart from those of Viola papilionacea. Both can have flowers that vary from almost white to deep purple. The difference between the two species is that the mature leaves on V. papilionacea are heart shaped while those of V. triloba are deeply lobed.

V. triloba prefers dry rocky open woods, thickets, bluffs with acidic soil.

Another Violet

Bird's Foot Violet

Photo by Marvin April 5, 2007

Bird's Foot Violet (Viola pedata)

Unlike most of our wildflowers, Bird's Foot Violet prefers rocky and/or dry woods, slopes and ridges. It's growing in and along the old road around the bench, almost back to the house on our routine afternoon walk loop.

There are two varieties of this violet other than the one pictured above. One has two petals that are much darker purple and is often called a Pansy Violet. Here, those bloomed a little earlier in the spring. Another variety is white, but we haven't discovered any of those on our place. Like all violets, Bird's Foot can hybridize easily in the wild. Unlike most violets, Bird's Foot has no cleistogamous flowers, making it impossible for this species to self-pollinate.

Cleistogamous flowers are flowers that do not open and are self pollinated. Cleistogamy insures that a plant produces seeds, even if conditions are unfavorable for wind or insect pollination. Cleistogamy occurs in many different and unrelated plant families, including violets (Violaceae), rushes (Juncaceae) and grasses (Poaceae).

Additional Resources:
Discover Life
Missouri Plants
Missouri Botanical Garden

Bird's Foot Violet

Common Blue Violet

From Photo by Jo -- March 26, 2007

Most of the common blue violets we have are dark purple, but we've found a few with variegated petals. Petal color can vary from dark purple to nearly white, and the common violet easily hybridizes with other violet species in the wild.

Links with additional information:
Missouri Plants
Missouri Wildflowers

Common Blue Violet

Wildflower Blooms Begin

We found the first bloodroot bloom of the season along our afternoon walking trail on Sunday.

The little purple violets growing out of a crack in a large rock are doing well, too.

From March, 2007

Wildflower Blooms Begin