JOURNAL 
OF 
The New York Botanical Garden 
VoL. X11] September. 1912. No. 153. 
WILD PLANTS NEEDING PROTECTION.! 
5. “Brrp’s-FooT VIOLET” (Viola pedata L.). 
After the spring is well advanced, and most of the other 
violets have been in bloom for nearly two weeks, the bird-foot 
violet comes to show how lovely a violet can be! Its flowers are 
larger and more delicate in color than any other of our wild 
species, the petals spread with a jaunty air, like a pansy, and 
vary in color from deep violet to pale lavender or white. They 
stand above the leaves on long stout pedicels and when 
growing in masses, as they used to on the Hempstead Plains of 
Long Island and Todt Hill on Staten Island, are as showy as any 
of the Alpine violets of Europe, comparing favorably with the 
long-spurred pansy of the Alps, Viola calcarata. 
The leaves give the plant its specific and common name from a 
fancied resemblance to a bird’s foot. They are palmately 
divided almost to the base, into narrow segments which are entire, 
or again divided into 3-5 wedge-shaped subdivisions. There is 
great variability in the shape and size of the leaves and they also 
vary from nearly smooth to quite hairy. The rootstocks are 
erect and stout, scaly above, and bear a large number of leaves 
and flowers on each, so that the temptation is to pull up the 
whole plant at once. When growing luxuriantly, they sometimes 
reach a foot in height with a dozen or more flowers open at once. 
The leaf-stalks and pedicels are tinted with purple and vary from 
2 to 6 inches or more in length. The two upper petals are bent 
backward over the short spur, the two lateral ones are spreading 
'THustrated by the aid of the Stokes Fund for the Preservation of Native Flants. 
135 
