They look like very young dog-tooth violet to me. I tried for years to get them to grow!!!! No luck with'em here.

Wow, you mean an invader that I may actually want to keep! Cool, I'll leave them alone the rest of this season and see what happens. I wonder if the previous owner planted them around the base of the tree to make things look nice there, you could be right.

Unless someone things it's something else... The majority are growing in the mulch at the base of the tree, some are growing in the lawn area surrounding the tree (they seem to be growing outwards in lines extending from the centerpoint at the tree).

They can take quite a while to bloom. I've been watching over some in my yard, that came from I don't know where, for about six years now. The patch keeps getting bigger, but still no flowers.