flower name

Hello,

In my garden I have these big groups of flowers that started popping up all over the place. It looks as if they spread all over my garden on their own.
Can you help me identify this flower:

Is this a perennial? How does it spread and is this a type of ground cover? Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

 

Those are Viola Tricolor known as Johnny Jump-ups. They spread by re-seeding themselves and they do it exceedingly well! You'll soon have them in every flower bed and all over your yard! It's not really considered ground cover, although I suppose anything that covers the ground could be ground cover, they are in the same family as the Pansy. I like them because they bloom early before other stuff has gotten going. They prefer rich, moist soil and can take full sun on the coast but like a little shade in hotter areas.

I just let them do their thing and plant my annuals and perennials around them. If they get really leggy and scraggly looking I prune them back with scissors. Just chop the tops off to get rid of the dead flowers and leggy growth, they'll soon grow up again and bloom some more.

 

Viola tricolor is Wild Pansy: http://ip30.eti.uva.nl/BIS/flora.php?selected=beschrijving&menuentry=soorten&id=2182

You appear to have a selection of different cultivars here with varying flower colour.

 

They look great! You could press the blossoms and make note cards; you could paint them with eggwhite and dip them in sugar to decorate iced cookies or a cake; or you could add them, as is, to a salad: Martha-Stewart-type things.

 

Probably just about nobody here is going to call these "wild pansies", whereas Johnny jump up is common. And since these are spontaneous seedlings each plant is not going to be a separate cultivar.

 

The Wild Pansy is native to Europe but not North America. It's an introduced species here and has become naturalized in some areas. Most folks here know it as the Johnny Jump-Up.

 

Exactly. Therefore it is Europe's right to name it, and not to have to put up with being ordered by outsiders to rename it.

 

I meant no offense by my statement, I simply provided the common name for the flower on this side of the pond, since blueberry is in Vancouver I figure she'd like the common name that's used here.

 

I wouldn't mind if the common names issue that pops up from time to time was handled with a bit more gentle respect to the original poster of the topic, who may not be terribly interested in the vagaries and issues surrounding common names of plants.

Absolutism closes off discussion (how's that for an absolutist statement?). I'm far more comfortable with a statement like: In Europe, where the plant is native to, it is called wild pansy (in English). Making statements in that manner helps to teach, is assertive and provides additional helpful information.

...and, for the record, I tend to call these pansies or violets (if pressed for a common name).

 

Viola Tricolor- said and done.
Colloquial names are interesting and rather amusing. Seldom do people dispute the Latin name assuming it is correct.

 

I've read that there are several hundred colloquial names for the wild pansy, and as a species, it is endemic from Scandinavia on south. I'm also fairly sure that "Europe" as a whole doesn't give everything an english name. I'd venture that's peculiar to the..umm...english? So..."Wild Pansy" is itself an english imposition on a plant that likely already possessed a scandinavian name. Pretty sure the Swedes don't like the English telling them what to call it. Doubtless the Laplanders had an older name for it yet: probably didn't like the Swedes telling them what it was called. The Latin name is of course intended to be universal: however, latin is a dead language that wasn't endemic to the point of origin either, so it is itself an imposition, a product of consensus amongst people in regions far distant from plant's endemic habitats. I've a suggestion, in light of the wild pansy's myriad names: let's call it Viola tricolor 'Pedant's Dream', or perhaps, Viola jingoisma. Alternately, could simply accept that for a whole bunch of users of this forum, it's "Johnny jump-ups", "wild pansy" for others, "Viola tricolor" if you like, and a bunch of other names not yet mentioned. Said and done.

 

Yep.

 

Please stop sniping at each other. People garden for many reasons - need for food, a more academic interest in biology and for gardeners like me, a love of growing my garden and, yes, I am charmed by the common names of plants. It can be annoying to some academically trained botanist when plants are, in their opinion, mislabled and this I can understand. What I cannot sympathise with is the need, sometimes by both camps, to be nasty.
I am continuing to learn so much from this site and find that I am inclined to read posts primarily from those who respect not only gardening but people as well.

"A rose by any other name......" This is only my opinion and and I am now going out into my much enjoyed garden.

Margaret

ps. Eric and Daniel, you may want to move this to "chat". Hope you both have lovely holidays.

 

Different languages are different issues. The issue here is the English name for Viola tricolor, not the Swedish, etc., etc., names for it. European Union legislation provides for each member country to define native plant, etc., names in their respective languages. English names of European native plants are regulated by the Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI), covering both the UK and the Irish Republic. Having others pushing hard to subvert our law is not greatly appreciated.

The other point at issue here is the tendency of (particularly) the USA to use its overwhelming political, economic and military might to enforce its customs on the rest of the world (looks like they already have Canada securely under their thumb!); if it didn't do so, and showed a bit more respect for native usage and customs, the issue wouldn't crop up so much. In Britain, the North American native Giant Sequoia Sequoiadendron giganteum is often called 'wellingtonia' by UK jingoists (tho I refuse to do so myself), but that name isn't heavily pushed on Americans the same way they push their name changes on us.

 

As per Margaret's suggestion, I've copied the relevant posts and closed this thread (since the original poster's question has been answered). Discussion re: the topic of names can continue here.