Viola arvensis

Field pansy, european field-pansy, wild pansy, Wild Pansy

Family: Violaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Field pansy is a naturalized annual found in the Klamath Ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada Foothills, Central Valley, and as a waif from cultivation in abandoned fields at elevations below 1,333 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces white to pale yellow flowers with violet upper petals and a distinct yellow base, often with violet veining and featuring two lateral petals with club-shaped bearded hairs. Growing prostrate to erect with multiple branched stems 5 to 35 centimeters tall, it emerges from a single taproot and spreads across the ground. Its leaves are lanceolate to oblong, 0.8 to 3.4 centimeters long, with coarsely crenate-serrate edges and a rounded to wedge-shaped base, typically glabrous on top and slightly hairy underneath along major veins. The fruit is nearly round, measuring 5 to 9 millimeters long and containing brown seeds about 1.5 to 1.9 millimeters in size.

Habitat: Abandoned fields

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: < 1333 m

Bioregions: KR, CaR, SNF, GV, waif from cultivated elsewhere

California counties: Siskiyou, Tuolumne, Santa Clara, El Dorado, Mariposa, Shasta

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.