Viola odorata

English violet, sweet violet, Sweet Violet

Family: Violaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

English violet is a naturalized perennial found in coastal California regions including North Coast, Sacramento Valley, Central Coast, San Francisco Bay, and South Coast in shady, moist riparian habitats at elevations of 30 to 1,255 meters. Flowering from January to May, this plant produces deep to pale blue-violet, pale blue, or white flowers with distinctive lower petals generally veined purple and side petals featuring cylindric beard-like hairs. Growing as a low spreading herb to 12 centimeters tall with thin rhizomes and leafy green stolons, it develops finely hairy stems. Its simple basal leaves are elliptic or ovate, 1.5 to 7 centimeters long with cordate bases, crenate edges, and obtuse to rounded tips supported by petioles 2 to 17 centimeters long. Small ovoid fruits 5 to 8 millimeters long are flecked with purple and covered in fine hairs.

Habitat: Garden escape reported in shady, moist areas generally in riparian habitats

Bloom period: Jan-May

Elevation: 30-1255 m

Bioregions: NCo, ScV, CCo, SnFrB, SnGb

California counties: Orange, Yolo, Los Angeles, Riverside, El Dorado, Marin, Alameda, San Luis Obispo, Humboldt, Butte, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Monterey

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