Viola pedunculata

Johnny-jump-up, Johnny-Jump-Up

Family: Violaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Johnny-jump-up is a California native perennial herb found in northern coastal, central western, and southwestern California bioregions in open, grassy slopes, hillsides, chaparral, and oak woodland at elevations below 1,540 meters. Flowering from February to April, this plant produces gold-yellow flowers with distinctive red-brown upper petals and dark brown veining, with lateral petals featuring club-shaped bearded hairs. Growing 5 to 39 centimeters tall with multiple decumbent to erect branched stems clustered on a shallow to deep caudex, it forms dense, spreading clumps. Its simple leaves range from 1 to 5.5 centimeters long and wide, with deltate to ovate blades that have crenate to serrate edges and vary from truncate to cordate bases. The fruit is an elliptic capsule 5 to 11 millimeters long, containing shiny dark brown seeds.

Habitat: Open, grassy slopes, hillsides, chaparral, oak woodland, generally full sun

Bloom period: Feb-Apr

Elevation: < 1540 m

Bioregions: NCoRO, NCoRI, CW, SW

California counties: Trinity, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Tulare, Riverside, Santa Cruz, Solano, Monterey, San Benito, Marin, Ventura, Merced, San Francisco, Contra Costa, San Bernardino, Stanislaus, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sonoma, Kern, Napa, Sacramento, Fresno, Plumas, Lake, Shasta, Yuba, Tehama

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