Viola sheltonii

Shelton's violet

Family: Violaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Shelton's violet is a California native perennial found in northwestern, northern Sierra Nevada, San Francisco Bay, southern coastal, Transverse, northwestern Peninsular, and Warner ranges in fir, pine, and oak woodlands at elevations of 484 to 2,500 meters. Flowering from March to July, this plant produces deep lemon-yellow flowers with purple-brown veining, the upper petals dark brown to purple-brown and the lower petals featuring distinctive veining. Growing 2 to 10 centimeters tall with prostrate to erect stems clustered on a woody rhizome, the plant forms small compact clusters. Its distinctive leaves are ternate-compound, with reniform to semicircular blades 2 to 7 centimeters wide, featuring leaflets that are obovate and often cleft or divided into oblanceolate segments. The fruit is an oblong to ovoid capsule 6 to 8 millimeters long, containing small shiny brown seeds.

Habitat: Fir, pine, or oak woodland, rich or gravelly soil

Bloom period: Mar-Jul

Elevation: 484-2500 m

Bioregions: NW, n&amps SNH, SnFrB, SCoR, TR, nw PR, Wrn

California counties: Tuolumne, Kern, Nevada, Plumas, Glenn, Siskiyou, Trinity, Los Angeles, El Dorado, San Bernardino, Orange, Shasta, Sierra, Tulare, Fresno, Humboldt, Contra Costa, Placer, Mendocino, Modoc, Monterey, Tehama, Butte, Mono, Amador, Alameda, Yuba, Lake, San Benito, Santa Clara, Madera, Del Norte, Mariposa

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