I can hardly wait for mine to bloom! They have graduated to the out-of-doors(in dappled shade)but are still in 4 inch pots. That way I can move them inside if it gets too cold.
-B

That's great to hear! I sure hope you get to see some blooms this year. Tom

Very pretty! I didn't realize that one had a fragrance. It sounds very much like the fragrance I detect from V. blanda - I tried crossing that with V. odorata once, but it didn't take (although I haven't exactly mastered the art of breeding with such tiny flowers, either; so easy to damage the stigma when I try to emasculate, etc.)

Hello Stefan,
Funny timing on this... during a weekend trip up to Northern Pennsylvania, I just found Viola blanda blooming and got to smell it (and bring a few small pieces home too -- wish me luck!). But the smell of V. blanda is MUCH stronger and [to me] was very similar to the scent of some scented pansies that I've grown. V. striata is much less powerful, but also has a very different quality (for lack of better word). It is similar in quality to the [also faint] scent I've noticed in Viola sororia 'Priceana'. Am I making sense? (No pun intended!)

I have pictures of those blanda, but haven't downloaded them yet, I'll post them soon.

Best wishes, Tom

Made perfect sense to me! However, I've come to realize now that what I grew and was always in the habit of calling "Viola blanda" was, in all probability, actually V. macloskeyi. V. canadensis also has a faint fragrance, a little bit like generic tea-ish rose. I do have one white violet of an unknown species that is totally scentless, but it hails from Austria. I've never stuck my nose into 'Priceana', never having expected to get any return for the investment ;) Most white-flowered types seem to have fragrance, which I suppose seems a fairly broad rule in the plant kingdom.

Stefan

Wow! I have never smelt a violet that does not carry a violet scent!!! I wonder what my nose will tell me the fragrance is like. Of the species violets with fragrance, I have never found a yellow one (but I have only seen two species of yellow violets in the wild so far:). The white-flowered Viola patrinii seemed scentless to me; but a friend of mine assured me that he had smelt its fragrance...