Viola hirtaL.

hairy violet

WFO wfo-0000423911 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Viola hirta, photographed by Ксения Волянская
fig. a Ксения Волянская, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-30 / obs. 201820995
Viola hirta, photographed by Эльмира
fig. b Эльмира, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197778103
Viola hirta, photographed by Татьяна Максимова
fig. c Татьяна Максимова, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198182855
Viola hirta, photographed by Татьяна Максимова
fig. d Татьяна Максимова, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198194436
Viola hirta, photographed by Силаева Татьяна Борисовна
fig. e Силаева Татьяна Борисовна, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198073272
Viola hirta, photographed by Силаева Татьяна Борисовна
fig. f Силаева Татьяна Борисовна, CC0 1.0 / obs. 197901426
Viola hirta, photographed by Ксения Волянская
fig. g Ксения Волянская, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197008204
Viola hirta, photographed by Елена Кизилова
fig. h Елена Кизилова, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197728982

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 40 botanical countries

Regions where Viola hirta is native: Altay, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Krasnoyarsk, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kriti, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine AltayIranKazakhstanKirgizstanKrasnoyarskNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusWest SiberiaXinjiangAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIrelandItalyKritiNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraine
Native distribution of Viola hirta, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iran IRN
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 828 in flower of 913 examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Viola hirta observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 828 of 913 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 2,044 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -19.7 °C -11.9 °C -1.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.3 °C 23.4 °C 25.4 °C
Annual rainfall 460 mm 611 mm 1,125 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 59 mm 101 mm 194 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 2,044 research-grade observations of Viola hirta that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 11 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Viola abortiva Jord.
  • Viola calcarea Gregory
  • Viola drymeia Schur
  • Viola foudrasi Jord.
  • Viola hebecarpa Schur
  • Viola hirsuta Crantz
  • Viola hirta subsp. brevifimbriata W.Beck
  • Viola hirta var. gymnocarpa Beck
  • Viola hirto-alba Gren. & Godr.
  • Viola maillardii Souché
  • Viola rubra Aubl. ex Steud.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.