Colorado Plant Database

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NUTTALL VIOLET - Viola nuttallii
IDENTIFICATION
Common Name: NUTTALL VIOLET
Family: Violet - Violaceae
Scientific Name: Viola nuttallii
Meaning of Name: for Thomas Nuttall, 19th century English botanist, Harvard professor and western explorer.
Key Characteristics: leaves narrowly lanceolate (lance-shaped) or lance-elliptic (oval), at least 3 times long as wide.
Flower Types: bilaterally symmetrical.
Flower Color: yellow
Leaf Type: simple (not divided into similar parts).
Mature Height: to 20 inches.
Habitat: meadows, open slopes, often blooming in the protection of rocks at 5,000 to 11,500 feet elevation.
IMAGE

ECOLOGY
Growth Form: herbaceous
Growth Duration: perennial
Angio/Gymnosperm: angiosperm (plant with covered seed).
Monocot/Dicot: dicot (plants with two seed leaves and netted leaf veins).
Life Zone: plains to montane.
Frequency: common
Native/Alien: native
Season of Bloom: spring to mid-summer (Mar. - Jul.).
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.
Comments: flowers in this family are characterized by bilateral symmetry and a spurred petal.

HUMAN USES

LANDSCAPING
Landscaping Use: ground cover, rocky gardens, shade gardens.
Light Requirement: open to shaded.

WEED MANAGEMENT

Version: 2.3.0      Release Date: Jan 2009       ©2009 Jefferson County ITS

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