Viola hallii

Hall's violet, wild pansy, Wild Pansy

Family: Violaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Hall's violet is a California native perennial found in northwestern California in vernally moist areas, open forests, grassy hills, and chaparral, often on serpentine or gravelly soils at elevations of 150 to 2,100 meters. Flowering from April to July, this plant produces distinctive flowers with dark red-violet upper petals and pale yellow to cream lower petals veined with dark violet. Growing 5 to 22 centimeters tall with decumbent to erect stems clustered on a deep caudex, some stems up to half subterranean. Its ternate-compound leaves have distinctive dissected leaflets, with basal leaves 2.8 to 6 centimeters wide and ovate to deltate blades divided into narrow elliptic or lanceolate segments. The lateral petals are notably bearded with club-shaped hairs, and the lowest petal reaches 5 to 18 millimeters in length.

Habitat: Vernally moist areas, open forest, grassy hills, flats, chaparral, often serpentine or gravelly soil

Bloom period: Apr-Jul

Elevation: 150-2100 m

Bioregions: NW

California counties: Siskiyou, Humboldt, Tehama, Trinity, Mendocino, Nevada, Mariposa, Lake, Shasta, Colusa, Del Norte, Lassen

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