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NUTTALL VIOLET - Viola nuttallii

IMAGE
Copyright:Bruce Bosley, bruce.bosley@colostate.edu Courtesy of Lookout Mountain Nature Center, lmnc.jeffco.us
Copyright:Bruce Bosley, bruce.bosley@colostate.edu Courtesy of Lookout Mountain Nature Center, lmnc.jeffco.us
Copyright:Bruce Bosley, bruce.bosley@colostate.edu Courtesy of Lookout Mountain Nature Center, lmnc.jeffco.us

IDENTIFICATION
Common Name: NUTTALL VIOLET
Other Common Names: yellow violet, yellow prairie violet
Scientific Name: Viola nuttallii
Derivation: for Thomas Nuttall, 19th century English botanist, Harvard professor and western explorer.
Family: Violet - Violaceae
Family Characteristics: irregular flowers (bilaterally symmetrical, can be divided only one way to produce mirror images); 5 separate petals, the lower one with a spur-like nectary (nectar gland); spurred anthers (pollen-bearing part of the male organ); has cleistogamous (closed, self-pollinating) flowers in addition to chasmogamous (open, insect-pollinated) flowers; leaves alternate (one leaf per node - joint of the stem where the leaves join stem), simple (not divided into many similar parts), sometimes lobed or dissected; fruit an explosive capsule (dry, multi-chambered fruit splitting at maturity).
Species Characteristics: leaves narrowly lanceolate (lance-shaped) or lance-elliptic (oval), at least 3 times long as wide.
Mature Height: to 20 inches.
Flower Color: yellow
Flower Symmetry: bilateral
Flower Structure: flowers bisexual (male and female parts in same flower).
Fruit Type: capsule (dry, multi-celled fruit that splits open on maturity).
Leaf Type: simple (not divided into similar parts).
ECOLOGY
Frequency: common
Growth Form: herbaceous
Life Cycle: perennial
Class: angiosperm (plant with covered seed).
SubClass: dicot (plants with two seed leaves and netted leaf veins).
Season of Bloom: spring to mid-summer (Mar. - Jul.).
Life Zone: plains to montane.
Habitat: meadows, open slopes, often blooming in the protection of rocks at 5,000 to 11,500 feet elevation.
Eco. Relationships: pollinated by bumblebees, seeds utilized by birds and small mammals, foliage grazed; members of the violet family have evolved 2 types of flowers to ensure pollination: the showy, typical violet flower which offers both nectar and pollen to attract insects and cleistogomous flowers produced after the regular flowers, which never open at all and are self-fertilized; cleistogamy is a permanent "back up" system which ensures progeny even if weather or low insect populations cause failure of the primary insect pollination strategy; host plant for Edwards' Fritillary butterfly, a 2 - 3 inch orange butterfly, with greenish lower hindwing with silver spots; greenish coloration is protective when resting in grasses; also one of host plants for the Aphrodite butterfly, a 2 to 3 inch orange butterfly with silver spots on the tawny underside of the hindwing; female lays eggs in fall under mountain mahogany, long after Nuttal violets have withered and disappeared; females may smell violets' dormant roots.

WEED MANAGEMENT
Origin: native

LANDSCAPING
Landscaping Use: ground cover, rocky gardens, shade gardens.
Moisture Requirement: moderate
Light Requirement: open to shaded.
Soil Requirement: various, dry to moist.

HUMAN CONNECTIONS

Version: 2.4.1      Release Date: June 2010       ©2010 Jefferson County ITS

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