[Joanna Savage]

This violet, flowering now, is growing prolifically in the olive groves here at about 300m, on the southern Appenine slopes in Provincia Pistoia. Are these photos adequate for determining the species? Many thanks, Joanna

[Alisdair]

Nice, Joanna: looks to be Viola reichenbachiana.

[Joanna Savage]

Alisdair, thank you so much for your help. I have been trying to identify that violet for years but my floras weren't what I needed.
It has been a giddy morning in the garden with a green woodpecker visiting for half an hour and a flock of goldfinches fussing about the cipressi. Because the land slopes so steeply every twig or small log is placed on the contour to hold soil and water. The wood must now be full of wildlife hence the woodpecker's intense interest.

[Alisdair]

Is your woodpecker mostly on the ground? We have one here in England who comes even in our current freezing weather to look for ants in the lawn....

[Joanna Savage]

Yes Alisdair, I was amazed that I could watch it for about ten minutes. The log it was interested in lies flat on the ground. I imagine there are ants in it as I have seen powdered wood by the log. There is snow around here too, but not exactly where it was feeding.

[MikeHardman]

Hello Joanna,

Your violets are in Section Viola.

First a word of warning:
Separating these species of Viola is fraught with difficulty, as expressed by Mereda et al. in
'Intraspecific Variation in Viola suavis in Europe: Parallel Evolution of White-flowered Morphotypes',
Ann Bot. 2008 September; 102(3): 443–462:
"Taxa of this subsection are well known for their taxonomic complexity, which is apparently caused by several factors: (a) scarcity of reliable diagnostic morphological characters; (b) high phenotypic plasticity; (c) frequent interspecific hybridizations; and (d) assumed past reticulate evolution within the section and subsection."
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2701792/]

However, we can have a go at using morphological characters, keeping fingers crossed...


Your photos do not provide enough info.
Please look for stolons (runners), and see if they are prone to rooting at the tips.

Then try this key, which I have created bearing in mind the particular area in Italy:
Stolons present?
- Yes
     - rooting at tips?
       - Yes
          - stolons short and stout? -- V. suavis
          - stolons long and slender -- V. odorata
       - No - V. alba ssp. dehnhardtii
 - No
      - spur paler than petals -- V. collina
      - spur not paler than petals -- V. hirta


Then refer to the following info to try to confirm your identification.
Also, some of the photos show details (eg. of stipules) which you can compare with your plants.

In subsection Viola:

- Viola alba ssp. dehnhardtii
http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=viola+alba+subsp.+dehnhardtii
stolons not (or barely) rooting at tips
stipules with long-ciliate margins
scented (but variable, sometimes none being detectable)

- Viola odorata
http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=viola+odorata
stolons rooting at tips (and perhaps elsewhere)
stipules with shortly glandular-fimbriate margins
scented (but variable, sometimes none being detectable)
bracts on flower stems above middle

- Viola suavis
http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=viola+suavis
leaves hairless, stolons shorter and stouter than in VV. odorata, alba)
stipules long-fimbriate
scented (but variable, sometimes none being detectable)
bracts on flower stems below middle
flowers bluer than V. odorata (which is more violet-purplish)
flowers have large white patch in middle (distinct from VV. odorata, alba, but not distinct from some forms of V. hirta)
   eg. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hermannherbarium/7048772301/
   -- your plants do not have this patch

In subsection Eflagellatae:

- Viola hirta
http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=viola+hirta
unscented
dark spur (violet-purple)

- Viola collina
http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=viola+collina
scented
pale spur (perhaps slight purplish tint) -- your plants do not match



For general reference:
Other candidates in section Viola, but not in your part of Italy:

- Viola adriatica (V. suavis ssp. adriatica)
http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=viola+adriatica
http://ibot.sav.sk/usr/Palo/docs/Viola_adriatica-poster-Vienna_2010.pdf

- Viola pyrenaica
http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=viola+pyrenaica

- Viola alba ssp. alba
http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=viola+alba+subsp.+alba
you are just a bit too far south
don't be fooled by the name: 'alba' comes in white and purple forms


Regards,
Mike

[Alisdair]

Mike, I couldn't quite follow what you were saying, but am I right in thinking that this may not be the usual (for that locality) V. reichenbachiana, in spite of looking so like?

[Joanna Savage]

Mike, thanks for your thorough reply. We have 5.6 cms snow and it is still snowing so it will be a few days before I am searching for stolons. It is not a great day for a general election.


I am having difficulty accessing the forum and am not able to enter it through the official channel as we disagree on the form of my user name. So if I don't reply, that's the reason.

[MikeHardman]

Joanna,
OKdokey

Alasdair,
No it is not V. reichenbachiana. You can see by the tip of the style (a reliable morphological character) it is in section Viola.

[Alisdair]

You've got sharper eyes than me, Mike! (As well as knowing so much more about violets.)
Must be unusual surely to have those other species you suggested flowering so early in the Apennines?

[MikeHardman]

Alsdair,

I don't know about sharper eyes, but it helps if you know what you are looking for (especially if the photo is a bit fuzzy at that level of magnification).

Styles:

- Vv. odorata, suavis, alba, etc.
   The tip bends down smoothly and tapers to a point, the fattest part being before the down-turn.
   This example of V. suavis shows that
    http://luirig.altervista.org/pics/display.php?pos=167433

- Vv. reichenbachiana, riviniana, etc.
   The tip bends down more abruptly, the fattest part being at the downturn, with tiny protrusions at the same place (so you could also say that it doesn't taper as smoothly). It appears somewhat club-like.
   This example of V. riviniana shows that
   http://www.assyntwildlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Common-Dog-Violet.jpg

Now you know, have a look at Joanna's first photo again...


Flowering times in Italy:
V. alba ssp. dehnhardtii feb-apr
V. odorata feb-apr
V. suavis feb-may
V. hirta feb-apr
V. collina mar-may
Those are main flowering periods; they can all flower earlier given low altitude and/or suitable microclimate and/or a generally early season. My V. odorata have been in flower continuously since November, and are still going strong.


I could give other pointers to identification, but most of them are unreliable to a greater or lesser extent, and my posting was long enough as it was. If in due course you, Joanna, find my little key proves difficult to apply, we can look at some of those other characters, with a view to getting a 'probable' dentification based on a bias amongst all the characters.

[Joanna Savage]

Hello Mike, The snow on the violets has cleared so I looked closely at them but I think I have more questions than answers.

Re. stolons, it may be too early in this year to say whether stolons are produced but I am guessing that the discrete patches of bunchy vegetative growth (see photo) suggest that they are growing from points where stolons rooted last year.

I don't know which are bracts and which are stipules.

Otherwise I have taken some more photos and would like to ask for your comments before I work more on your key. Many thanks Joanna

[MikeHardman]

Joanna,

Very useful photos, thanks.

Photo 1 shows there are stolons - so it is not Vv. collina or hirta.
The spur being darker than the petals also rule out V. collina (photo 3).

Photo 1 also shows quite slender stolons, which rules out V. suavis.
I make this judgement based on experience; you cannot really be expected to know.

Photo 2 shows bracts (sometimes called bracteoles).
They are always in pairs, though they are sometimes a bit staggered.
When considering their position on a peduncle (flower stem), look only at flowers that are fully open (where the peduncle is not full-grown, their position is unreliable).
Stipules are the small somewhat leaf-like appendages at the base of each leaf stem (petiole). In violet species with stems (branches or stolons), they are easier to study because the leaves are spaced out to some extent. But in species that form rosettes of leaves, such as Vv. odorata and alba, the stipules are bunched-up with the leaf stems and hence harder to see well or easily.

Photo 4 is an excellent depiction of the shape of the tip of the style.
This is definitely in section Viola, ie. VV. alba / odorata / suavis in this case.


So the preceding observations point us to Vv. odorata / alba.

In differentiating these two species, the position of the bracts is not useful, so no need to go looking.

Consider:
1. whether the stolons root at their tips
2. the stipules

In more detail:
1. If you pull a rosette at the end of a stolon, is it firmly anchored to the soil, or is it free or anchored by just one or two relatively feeble roots?
2. V. odorata has stipules with shortly glandular-fimbriate margins;
    V. alba has stipules with long-ciliate margins.
    To make sense of that, refer to the diagrams in the attachment (from Marc Espeut's 'Approche du genre Viola dans le Midi Méditerranéen Français' in 'Le Monde Des Plantes', 1999, pp.15-38)
Here is a photo of a stipule of V. odorata - http://www.florealpes.com/photos/violettesuave_5.jpg


If that does not produce a clear ID, we can consider other things.
But we must also accept that we may be dealing with a hybrid (we'd need to look at many plants to compare characteristics, bearing in mind that hybrids should occur in proximity to their parents).


Over to you...
Mike

[Joanna Savage]

More help from Mike is leading to the conclusion that this violet ia hybrid. The lack of rooting stolons suggest V. alba dehnhardtii but the stipules are very similar to those shown in the drawings above of V.odorata.