Viola palustris (marsh violet or alpine marsh violet) is a perennial forb of the genus Viola. It inhabits moist meadows, marshes, and stream banks in northern parts of North America and Eurasia. The species epithet palustris means "marsh-loving".

Description

Viola palustris is a perennial plant that grow to . During the summer they often form small colonies connected together by pale stolons that root frequently and that are leafy at the nodes. Plants will also have slender and fleshy rhizomes, modified underground stems.

All the leaves are basal, attached to the base of the plant rather than to stems, by hairless petioles that are long. The leaves do not have lobes, but do have hairless edges that are crenulate, a very fine rounded tooth edge. Their shape varies between reniform, ovate, and orbiculate; like a kidney with an indentation on the side of the leaf attachment, egg shaped with the wider portion towards the base, and circular in shape. They are 0.5–6.4cm long and 0.5–5.5cm wide and more or less as long as wide.

The flowers are usually lilac, pale blue, or pale violet on both sides, but are sometimes very pale approaching white. They measure 10 to 13millimeters across.

The bottom middle petal and sometimes the two petals to either side have violet floral guides. The lateral pair are lightly bearded.

Taxonomy

Viola palustris was given its scientific name by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. It has two accepted subspecies, juressi and the autonym palustris. It is part of the genus Viola in the family Violaceae.

The species has synonyms of the species or one of its two subspecies.

Table of Synonyms

Names

The species name, palustris, is listed in texts about Botanical Latin with the meaning "marsh loving". It is known by the common names marsh violet or alpine marsh violet. It is also sometimes called the northern marsh violet.

Range and habitat

Marsh violets are native to Europe and North America as well as a small area in northern Africa and a portion of western Asia. In Asia it grows just in Western Siberia in Russia. To the east in Europe it is native to almost every country, but is absent from southern Russia, Crimea in Ukraine, European Turkey, Albania, the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, the archipelago of Svalbard, and the Balearic Islands. It is recorded as locally extinct in Hungary. They are found in the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean.

In north America their range includes Greenland and most of Canada except for the Yukon, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. In the western United States it grows in mountainous areas of Washington, Oregon, northern coastal California, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. It also grows in parts of Nevada and Utah and is reported without specific locations in Arizona, Colorado, and South Dakota. It also has been recorded by the Natural Resources Conservation Service as native to the northeastern states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Marsh violets grow in marshes, fens, swamps, wet forests, and along stream banks. They grow at sea level all the way to in elevation.

Ecology

It is used as a larval foodplant by the pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria euphrosyne) and the small pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria selene), though the small pearl-bordered fritillary prefers the marsh violet and the pearl-bordered fritillary prefers common dog-violet (Viola riviniana). It is also used as a host plant by the dark green fritillary (Speyeria aglaja). It is a known host for Hendersonia violae and Puccinia fergussonii, two pathogenic fungi.

References

External links

• in Southwestern Colorado Wildflowers