Ging.
Description
Viola wallichiana is a small perennial herb of the Himalaya, distributed through Nepal, northern India, Sikkim, Bhutan and southwestern China, with peripheral or introduced records noted from Australia; GBIF holds about 79 collections, reflecting a relatively localised eastern Himalayan range. It grows in shaded, moist temperate forest, on mossy banks, humus-covered slopes and shaded rock ledges, typically between about 2000 and 3000 m. The photographed plants were found in Sikkim's Vista valley at around 2500 m in June and in the West Bengal hills at Ruigi-Chu near 2100 m in May, on the cool, sheltered, leaf-littered forest floor it inhabits through late spring and the early monsoon.
The plant is a low, stemless to short-stemmed perennial arising from a slender rhizome, sometimes spreading by short stolons. The leaves are basal or nearly so, long-petiolate, the blade ovate to cordate or reniform with a crenate margin and conspicuous fringed stipules. The flowers are solitary on slender axillary peduncles, zygomorphic and spurred in typical violet fashion, pale violet to bluish or whitish with darker veining on the lower petal, the spur short. Cleistogamous flowers may also be produced. The fruit is a small loculicidal capsule that splits into three valves, ejecting the seeds elastically.
Viola (Violaceae) is a large, cosmopolitan genus, and V. wallichiana belongs to the temperate Himalayan group of rosulate, spurred-flowered violets, commemorating Nathaniel Wallich. Its cordate basal leaves, fringed stipules and pale veined flowers distinguish it from congeners. It is a typical understorey forb of mid-elevation forest, locally common but not assessed as threatened.
Author: Ging. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 13, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 2, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Becker conspectus of Himalayan Viola