Flora of the Southeastern United States

*Viola odorata Linnaeus. Common name: Sweet Violet, English Violet. Phenology: Chasmogamous flower Mar-May; chasmogamous fruit May-Jun; cleistogamous fruit May-Jul. Habitat: Gardens, lawns, disturbed places, persistent or weakly spreading from horticultural use. Distribution: Native of Europe.

ID notes: Although this introduced and occasionally cultivated species has often been misidentified as several different species due to lax observation, its mat-forming habit with rosettes connected by green cordlike stolons, densely puberulent to hirtellous foliage, and orbiculate to ovate-deltate leaf blades with closely and regularly crenate margins and broadly obtuse to broadly rounded apex should distinguish it at any time of the growing season. Vaguely similar acaulescent non-stoloniferous violets include V. communis, V. domestica, V. latiuscula, V. sororia sensu stricto, V. sororia (glabrous variant), and V. sororia (hirsutuloides variant). In chasmogamous flower it differs from all of the above in its somewhat elongate spur, and the style terminating in a prolonged downward-pointing ‘‘hook’’ and it also can be distinguished from the mat-forming V. appalachiensis and V. walteri by its membranous or semiherbaceous glandular-fimbriate stipules, and long hooked style. In cleistogamous fruit it is immediately different from all of the above species in its puberulent or hirtellous capsule and rather large unspotted ivory to light orange-brown seeds.

Origin/Endemic status: Europe

Synonymy ⓘ: = C, Can, F, FNA6, G, Il, K4, NE, NS, Pa, POWO, S, S13, Va, Ballard () (in prep), Ballard (1992a), Ballard, Kartesz, & Nishino (2023), Haines (2001); = n/a — Tat. Basionym: Viola odorata L. 1753

Links to other floras: = Viola odorata - FNA6

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