This botanical illustration was created by Mardi Niles using a Micron 005 #1\u00a0Archival Ink pen and Prismacolor Verithin colored pencils on Bristol Regular paper. It will be the first of several beautiful\u00a0pieces of native plant art by Mardi you will be seeing on our covers into the near future.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Viola pedunculata<\/em> is widespread throughout the coastal portion of our chapter area. It extends inland as far as there is enough\u00a0moisture. Dr. Hoover reports that it is apparently absent from the desert portions of our county such as the Carrizo Plains. It is\u00a0always a visible treat along Highway 58 where it can be seen growing in the grass under blue and valley oaks. Of course, it\u2019s\u00a0best after a moderate- or -better rainy season. The vegetative plant usually appears as a mound out of which the stalked purple\u00a0streaked yellow flowers arise like little flags. Observe Mardi\u2019s drawing again and imagine scores of them clustered into a tight\u00a0mound and you will have created the plant\u2019s most common appearance. The 5 petals are of different sizes and arranged to\u00a0make the flower display with bilateral (left-right) symmetry.<\/p>\n In fact this violet is common enough that it is easy to take it for granted as just another meek but sort of pretty wild flower.\u00a0But a look at the description of the plant in the Jepson Manual offers an interesting unexplained characteristic: For example,\u00a0the genus description of Viola states that the species has \u2018cleistogamous\u2019 flowers. Cleistogamous flowers are usually tiny\u00a0inconspicuous flowers in which the flower\u2019s anther lies directly against the receptive portion of the pistil (stigma). They are\u00a0usually produced deep down in the foliage or in this case deep inside the mound. That is, they are essentially invisible to\u00a0pollinators. This condition results in seed in which the parents, both mother and father, are the same individual plant. This\u00a0results in seed that is genetically identical to the parent; i.e. the only genetic variation possible is from extremely somatic rare\u00a0mutations. It is a process that ensures seed is set regardless of drought or scarcity of pollinators. Unfortunately, this means all\u00a0the seeds are identical. On the plus side, if the parent plant dies, cleistogamous flowers ensure that seed will be available to\u00a0produce a replacement. Note that the pretty flowers that wave like flags above the mound are fully exposed to pollinators\u00a0(chasmogamous) and capable of receiving pollen from other individual violet plants. Thus these flowers produce much seed\u00a0that is cross pollinated and therefore variable and capable of growing in conditions different from where its parent is growing.\u00a0Our little common native violet only produces chasmogamous or open pollinated flowers. This fact increases the percentage\u00a0of variable seed but doesn\u2019t mean all seed is from out-crossing since there is no barrier to pollen arriving from another flower\u00a0on the same plant.<\/p>\n There is no real unanimity on the common name of our violet. A short search of the Internet and the wildflower books on my\u00a0shelf turned up: \u2018violet\u2019, \u2018Johnny jump up\u2019, \u2018pansy\u2019, as well as \u2018California violet\u2019, \u2018yellow violet\u2019, and finally, \u2018grass violet\u2019.\u00a0Note Johnny jump-up or pansy can be used with any of the names above. All of these names are variations of the common\u00a0names associated with the genus Viola<\/em> or with the very commonly grown introduced, violet, pansy or Johnny-jump-up (Viola\u00a0tricolor<\/em>) found in many gardens. Yellow refers to the dominant flower color and grass refers to its preferred habitat. Violet\u00a0refers to the variations in violet color found in many species in the genus. However, remember our violet is yellow. California\u00a0refers to the state that contains most of our violet\u2019s range<\/p>\n Dirk Walters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wild (California, yellow, or grass) violet, pansy or Johnny \u2013jump-up This botanical illustration was created by Mardi Niles using a Micron 005 #1\u00a0Archival Ink pen and Prismacolor Verithin colored pencils […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7807,"featured_media":6179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,406],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n