Violets for the broken-hearted

The common violet, New Jersey’s state flower. — bobosh_t/Flickr

Though it lacks the surprise value of the trout lily and the pizazz of the rare native orchid, the violet is a wild little thing that makes itself right at home in suburban back yards and rural farmlands.

I can’t say I know anyone who has actually planted the common woolly blue violet (Viola sororia), New Jersey’s official state flower. But most of us can probably go out back right now and find clusters of these miniature flowers colonizing odd corners in the shade. It’s so common that it’s hard to think of this domesticated volunteer as a wildflower.

Violets thrive in many temperate zones around the world. Europe has the most spectacular types and the longest history of admiring them, but North America has the greater variety — six times as many. In the 1940s, one botanist estimated that some 300 species, varieties and hybrids lived north of Mexico, with about 130 types native to the Northeast.

Today, the situation would be even more confusing, since plants of the Viola family, of which our violet is a member, are notoriously eager to breed.

I’ve got loads of the standard, deep-purple type along my stream bank, but several clumps in the garden turn out to be white with a spattering of purple spots on their little “faces.” It is the spitting image of a commercial hybrid called “Freckles,’ and I’m not even going to speculate how these little guys showed up in my border next to the sprawling Russian sage.

The arrangement of the violet’s five petals are specifically designed as a gaudy landing strip for pollinating insects. But these plants also have curious, secondary flowers that never bloom, lower on the plant than the conspicuous flower we tend to notice. Known as cleisogamous flowers, they look like unopened buds or pods, but actually hold everything necessary to produce fertile seeds.

A “freckled” violet, one variation on the theme. — livwombat/Flickr

If the violet can’t manage to exchange pollen, it can produce offspring anyway, which is probably how they manage to be so abundant. Some types, including the heavily perfumed Viola odorata, or sweet violet, also increase by means of underground runners, and these can quickly make an invasive pest of themselves.

We may think violets are something to sniff at — in the sense of enjoying their scent and in the sense that they are beneath serious interest. But historically, this is a minority view.

The Athenians treasured violets and made them the symbol of their city — violets turned up in the garden, on the altars and in wedding bouquets. The Romans embraced the violet, too, and had the curious notion that they could prevent drunkenness and hangovers. It’s hard to follow their reasoning, since they also prepared a wine of violet blossoms. Violets also were the favorites of such disparate personalities as Queen Victoria, Napoleon Bonaparte and Mohammed, all of whom helped popularize the plant in their day.

Medicinally speaking, violets are one of the few plants to contain salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin, and they have been used for everything from insomnia to eye inflammations, epilepsy to cancer. The basal leaves contain five times as much vitamin C as an equivalent weight of oranges and more than twice as much vitamin A as spinach, so there’s no real harm in tasting a few.

Among the violet’s many common names is “heart’s ease,” some say derived from the idea that its heart-shaped leaves indicated a cure for heart disease.

Others link this name to the violet’s ancient use as an aphrodisiac and love potion, but I like another fanciful violet notion best. In their guise as heart’s ease, these flowers were said to have the power to mend a broken heart. Now, there’s an ailment for which modern science has yet to produce a more effective remedy.