Viola glabella

Stream violet, smooth yellow violet, Smooth Yellow Violet

Family: Violaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Stream violet is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, central western California, and Warner Mountains in moist to wet generally shady forest and streambank habitats at elevations below 2,600 meters. Flowering from March to August, this plant produces deep lemon-yellow flowers with deep purple veining, the lateral petals featuring distinctive cylindric beard hairs. Growing 3 to 38 centimeters tall with erect green stems emerging from a thick, shallow horizontal rhizome, it develops multiple stems that are glabrous or finely puberulent. Its leaves are thin and variable, with basal leaves 3.3 to 8.5 centimeters wide, ovate to round, having a heart-shaped base and crenate to serrate edges. The fruit develops as an ovate to elliptic capsule 7 to 13 millimeters long, containing shiny pale brown seeds.

Habitat: Moist to wet generally shady places in forest, streambanks, etc

Bloom period: Mar-Aug

Elevation: < 2600 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, SN, CW, Wrn

California counties: Trinity, Plumas, Tulare, Humboldt, San Mateo, Siskiyou, Mendocino, Santa Cruz, Lake, Kern, Tuolumne, Marin, Madera, El Dorado, Sonoma, Del Norte, Placer, Butte, Shasta, Santa Barbara, Sierra, Fresno, Santa Clara, Modoc, Amador, Glenn, Mariposa, Alameda, Alpine, Tehama, Lassen, Nevada, Napa, Contra Costa, Calaveras, Colusa

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