Viola macloskeyiF.E.Lloyd

small white violet

WFO wfo-0001144650 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Viola macloskeyi, photographed by Quinten Wiegersma
fig. a Quinten Wiegersma, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-30 / obs. 202003295
Viola macloskeyi, photographed by Michael
fig. b Michael, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196342618
Viola macloskeyi, photographed by Kate
fig. c Kate, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 134184135
Viola macloskeyi, photographed by Pierre Cartier
fig. d Pierre Cartier, CC0 1.0 / obs. 131343127
Viola macloskeyi, photographed by Bob
fig. e Bob, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 129429870
Viola macloskeyi, photographed by Laura J. Costello
fig. f Laura J. Costello, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183177976
Viola macloskeyi, photographed by Ian Manning
fig. g Ian Manning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126137029
Viola macloskeyi, photographed by Jason K.
fig. h Jason K., CC BY 4.0 / obs. 124500901

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
01088292
Filed as
Viola macloskeyi subsp. pallens (Banks ex Ging.) M.S.Baker
Det. by
D. E. Atha 2009-01-01
Collected
D. E. Atha 2009-05-11
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 53 botanical countries

Regions where Viola macloskeyi is native: Alberta, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Labrador, Maine, Manitoba, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Newfoundland, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ohio, Ontario, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward I., Québec, Rhode I., Saskatchewan, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Dominican Republic AlbertaArizonaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutGeorgiaIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKentuckyLabradorMaineManitobaMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMissouriMontanaNevadaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNewfoundlandNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaNorthwest TerritoriesNova ScotiaNunavutOhioOntarioOregonPennsylvaniaPrince Edward I.QuébecSaskatchewanSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyomingDominican Republic DelawareRhode I.
Native distribution of Viola macloskeyi, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
Arizona ARI
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
Georgia GEO
Idaho IDA
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kentucky KTY
Labrador LAB
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Missouri MSO
Montana MNT
Nevada NEV
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New Mexico NWM
New York NWY
Newfoundland NFL
North Carolina NCA
North Dakota NDA
Northwest Territories NWT
Nova Scotia NSC
Nunavut NUN
Ohio OHI
Ontario ONT
Oregon ORE
Pennsylvania PEN
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
Saskatchewan SAS
South Carolina SCA
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Utah UTA
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
Washington WAS
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS
Wyoming WYO
Dominican Republic DOM SOUTHERN AMERICA

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 323 in flower of 333 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Viola macloskeyi 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. 323 of 333 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 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 869 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -11.8 °C -7.1 °C -3.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.5 °C 24.0 °C 29.0 °C
Annual rainfall 769 mm 1,403 mm 1,891 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 26 mm 49 mm 100 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 869 research-grade observations of Viola macloskeyi 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 blanda subsp. macloskeyi (F.E.Lloyd) A.E.Murray
  • Viola blanda var. macloskeyi (F.E.Lloyd) Jeps.
  • Viola clandestina Pursh
  • Viola macloskeyi subsp. pallens (Banks ex Ging.) M.S.Baker
  • Viola macloskeyi var. macloskeyi
  • Viola macloskeyi var. pallens (Banks ex Ging.) C.L.Hitchc.
  • Viola minuscula Greene
  • Viola pallens (Banks ex Ging.) Brainerd
  • Viola pallens subsp. macloskeyi (F.E.Lloyd) M.S.Baker
  • Viola pallens var. subreptans J.Rousseau
  • Viola rotundifolia var. pallens Banks ex Ging.

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.