It's Violet Time for One Species!

 We had such a warm day yesterday, I bet our earliest violets are starting to open their petals. And our earliest species to bloom around Saratoga is actually an imported species called the English Violet (Viola odorata).  And oh boy, is it aptly named "odorata!" It has such an exquisitely intense fragrance, just a tiny nosegay will perfume an entire room. It's a basal-leaved species that can bear pure white flowers with no dark veining on the face but with a purple spur behind, or else with flowers of a deep rich purple throughout, and both species are equally fragrant. One of its most distinguishing features (in addition to its intense fragrance) is its curved style. I have been observing the same two patches in the woods (one white, one purple) for over 15 years, and the plants have not spread beyond their original patch. So although this species is not native to our continent, it does not seem to be invasive, either. At least, not as I have observed this species in my local woods in Saratoga Springs, NY. I am might happy I found it.

The English Violet is a remarkably early bloomer. For that reason, it's sometimes called April Violet, like the perfume called "April Violets" by Yardley, which does smell very much like this violet. I have not seen that perfume for sale for decades, though. I used to buy it in my Michigan hometown's Rexall Drugstore when I was a teenager. I'm just about 84 years old now! But this violet's fragrance brings lots of teenage memories back.

I'm about to head out to the Skidmore woods to see if these lovely violets have come into bloom. I don't have new photos of them yet, but here are photos I took on previous years:

Since this purple patch of English Violets grows wild by the side of a city road where mowers are likely to cut them down, I feel no compunction about picking a small bouquet of them.  In this photo, you can see the flower's hooked style, which is one of the distinguishing features of this species, in addition to its fragrance.  Some of our native small white violets do have some fragrance, but not nearly as intensive as these imported violets do.

Just a tiny bouquet like this will perfume an entire room.   And the flowers usually last for several days, continuing to emit their fragrance.  What a gift from the violet gods!

There's a patch of the white form of Viola odorata way over on the opposite side of the Skidmore campus, this patch along a path through the woods.  I never pick any wildflowers in the woods, so I have to get down on my knees to breathe in these violets' fragrance.  Note how purely white these flowers are, without the dark veins that decorate the faces of our native white violets. But these pure-white flowers do have a purple spur, which you can glimpse on the left-hand flower in this photo.  Another feature of this species is the way the plants spread by underground stolons.  I did long ago scratch away some soil to observe this stoloniferous trait.  I was totally puzzled as to this violet's species, until our state's then chief botanist Steve Young sought advice from our country's foremost expert on violets Harvey Ballard, who ascertained that these lovely flowers were indeed Viola odorata.

The site where both of these English Violet varieties grow, the Skidmore College campus, is located on land that once supported a collection of Victorian mansions. I could imagine that the Victorian ladies who lived in those mansions carried nosegays of these fragrant violets to mask the smells of horse manure as they rode in their open carriages along the carriage lanes that once wound through the woods at this site. I imagine their gardeners planted the patches to have such fragrant flowers available to make nosegays of. The word "nosegay" means a small fragrant bouquet that was carried or pinned to a shoulder to counteract unpleasant odors. Both patches of fragrant violets occur along what once were carriage lanes.  Souvenirs of a different era!