Viola douglasii

Douglas' violet, golden violet, Golden Violet

Family: Violaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Douglas' violet is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, the high Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, northern Sierra Nevada, Tehama County, Central Valley, central western California, southern California Ranges, San Bernardino Mountains, and Peninsular Ranges in vernally moist flats and grassy slopes, often on serpentine, at elevations of 20 to 2,300 meters. Flowering from February to July, this plant produces light gold-yellow flowers with upper petals dark red-brown to nearly black and lower petals veined dark brown, with lateral petals bearing distinctive cylindric beard hairs. Growing with decumbent to erect stems 3 to 20 centimeters tall, clustered on a deep caudex and up to half subterranean. Its compound basal leaves have 3 to 5 leaflets divided into 3 to 5 narrow segments, each 1 to 2.5 millimeters wide, with densely ciliate edges. The fruit is round to oblong, 5 to 12 millimeters long and glabrous.

Habitat: Vernally moist flats, grassy slopes, often on serpentine

Bloom period: Feb-Jul

Elevation: 20-2300 m

Bioregions: NW, CaRH, SNF, n SNH, Teh, GV, CW, SnGb, SnBr, PR

California counties: Mendocino, Butte, Lake, Placer, San Bernardino, San Diego, Glenn, San Benito, Colusa, Fresno, Siskiyou, Kern, Monterey, Los Angeles, Tuolumne, El Dorado, Madera, Sonoma, Santa Clara, Marin, San Joaquin, Calaveras, San Luis Obispo, Riverside, Tulare, Solano, Sutter, Plumas, Sacramento, Shasta, Tehama, Nevada, Mariposa, Napa, Amador, Santa Barbara, Stanislaus, Trinity, Yolo, Inyo, Modoc, Yuba, Alpine

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