The white bog violet is a wetland species found near streams and in open wet meadows. In Florida, it is often dense in the seasonally wet edges around freshwater marshes. The violet is often hidden in plain sight nestled in grasses and sedges. The leaves are narrow with small teeth along the edge. When not in flower, it is seldom noticed.

The plant colonizes both by runners and seeds. The white bog violet blooms with chasmogamous [chas mog’ a mus] flowers each held on an erect peduncle above the leaves. These flowers have white petals, one with red streaks, and are open for insect pollination. By summer, the plant is profusely producing stolons (runners) capable of producing a new plant at each node.

The later set of flowers, or the first ones produced by a young runner plant are cleistogamous [kli stog’ a mus] or closed flowers. These are on short peduncles, lack petals entirely and never open. The flower pollinates itself, thereby insuring the production of seeds.

Violets produce a myriad of seeds in each capsule. When the seeds are ripe, the capsule splits three ways. The violent splitting flings the seeds far from the parent plant.

Although a common species among the eight native violet species in Florida, the white bog violet is listed as threatened in Minnesota and Vermont. Violets are members of the Violaceae.

 

(Compiled from: An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Nathaniel Lord Britton and Hon. Addison Brown, Dover Publications, NY, 1970 and personal observation)