Roses are red, violets are yellow?

Viola biflora at the Reykjavik Botanic Garden in Iceland in late June

So "Violets are blue" eh? Poets do take their liberties. I was recently thinking about how amazing it is that the Universal yellow violet of Eurasia is pretty much restricted to the boreal parts of America, except for Colorado, as you will see. Above it makes a heck of a mound in a botanical garden...

Viola biflora at Brunquist Gulch 20 miles West of Denver

Here it is at an amazingly low altitude not far from Denver in Denver Mountain Parks. I have featured this locality in a past blog.

Range of Viola biflora in the USA from a BONAP map

Here is the overall range map according to the US Government...which has unconscionably been shut down by the Narcissist-in-chief inflicting suffering and grief on nearly a million of my fellow Americans in order to build a hideous, ecologically disastrous and symbolically repugnant wall: I HATE IT, but I digress... I can't help but wonder if there aren't a few Viola biflora lurking in Idaho or Wyoming!

Viola biflora on the Austrian Road, far easternmost Kazakhstan

And here it is in Central Asia--another of those links between Colorado and the Altai that William Weber first limned.

Viola sheltonii: short lived in my garden

I have never seen this in Colorado, although Dan Johnson did last year and photographed it. High on my Bucket List for the last Colorado wildflowers that have eluded me. I grew it from seed and bloomed it--but it only lasted one year.

Viola pensylvanica in Kentucky

Here's the commonest yellow violet of the East: apparently this can be weedy in some gardens. It has grown for me but I'm still waiting for seedlings: I think it's lovely

Viola nuttallii on the Flattop Mt. in western Colorado at 11,000'

By far our commonest native violet, this is found all over the Great Plains, the foothills and I've seen it all the way to timberline. These were taken on subalpine roadcuts in Western Colorado a few years ago.

Closeup of same

Viola purpurea

Surely the silliest name for a violet--named for the purple color on the undersurface of the leaf, in my home state, this is restricted to Northwestern Colorado where I photographed this years ago. But it's common throughout much of the West. Chary of gardens I've found thus far.

And there are so many more--especially pansies from Europe and Asia that often come in yellow....dozens of species really--but they're another story to be told another time:

Roses are red

Violets are yellow

I'll be pleased as Punch

when we're done with that fellow.