Viola bakeri

Baker's violet

Family: Violaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Baker's violet is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, California Ranges, Sierra Nevada, and Modoc Plateau in vernally moist openings within conifer forest at elevations of 900 to 3,800 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces deep lemon-yellow flowers with maroon or brown upper petals and brown-purple veined lower petals, with lateral petals featuring distinctive cylindric beard hairs. Growing prostrate to erect with several stems clustered on woody rhizomes, it reaches 3 to 30 centimeters tall with delicate branching. Its leaves are simple and thin, with basal leaves 1.8 to 8.8 centimeters long, lanceolate to oblanceolate, and having bases that taper obliquely with obtuse or acute tips. The fruit is a round to ovoid capsule 5 to 10 millimeters long, containing tan to dark red-brown seeds.

Habitat: Vernally moist openings in conifer forest

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: 900-3800 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRH, CaRH, SNH, MP

California counties: Mono, Nevada, Plumas, Glenn, Fresno, Sierra, Placer, Siskiyou, Shasta, El Dorado, Mendocino, Lassen, Butte, Tehama, Mariposa, Humboldt, Trinity, Calaveras, Alpine, Amador, Madera, Tuolumne

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