Although I never planted the Native American violets that freely roam my woodland garden, I gather the flowers in the spring to admire their delicate beauty in vases, which seems at odds with their wild and wacky ways.

Florist know violets have the ability to absorb water through their petals and violet lovers often turn them upside down overnight to refresh them and lengthen their already long vase life.

As it is, I yearly dig up and discard a portion of my natives to keep them in check, although they are difficult to remove. Their brillo-pad roots grow tightly on the surface, nothing competes. A shovel doesn’t easily dislodge them either. Last week as I dug out violets seeded among the perennials I cherished, I noticed a cluster of purple buds completely hidden under the foliage ringing its stem.  I had discovered fall buds years before when I ignorantly thought the violets were blooming twice in the same year. I quickly learned the buds never open.

True violets produce two different flowers. The showy spring flowers I love to pick are infertile. Consequently, later in the summer, another set of cleistogamous flowers that never open form at the base of the flower. Their sole purpose is to self-pollinate within the closed bud and to produce seeds. I know I will find dried, open seed capsules if I check back under the leaves later in the fall.

I find it impossible to imagine the purported power of these wee flowers. I am told they have the amazing ability to spew their small seeds up to nine feet away. Wouldn’t it be something to catch them in action! I don’t know anyone who can spit that far, no matter his or her size. Is it any wonder I am weeding them out of the perennials in another bed entirely from where they have been allowed to colonize?

Unfortunately, my natives are scentless. Not what violets should be!  It is a pity.  I have not successfully grown the scented varieties poets laud. They prefer a more southern climate.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, when fashion dictated fragrant violets, Viola odorata, be worn close to 150 greenhouses along the Hudson River were devoted to growing them for the New York flower market. None exist today.

In the days when they were in fashion, the correct way to sniff violets was part of the education of Victorian ladies. A deep inhalation was considered vulgar, and young ladies were taught to take a series of short dainty sniffs. Perhaps this was wise: violets contain ionone, a sort of odoriferous sledgehammer that when breathed deeply causes numbness. After one over enthusiastic inhalation, it may be impossible to smell anything else again until the numbness leaves a few moments later. Never the less, Shakespeare spoke of them only in positive terms: “Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, the perfume and suppliant of a minute.”

Let’s pause to admire the amazing world of wild and wacky plants.