Wednesday Wildflower: Viola banksii

In New Zealand we have three native and 5 naturalised violets.  One of the naturalised ones is from Australia, identified in the 1988 Flora as Viola hederacea.  It's occasionally cultivated, and because it's stoloniferous it tends to spread and occasionally escapes to become naturalised.  So I was delighted on a trip to Australia last December to see a similar plant growing in the wild, in the hills inland from the Sunshine Coast.

Viola banksii in the hills near Maroochydore, Queensland

I took some photos, and posted this one on Facebook, but my Melbourne University friend and colleague Michael Bayly politely suggested that this plant is more likely to be Viola banksii.  It seems Viola hederacea is a complex of several species and it has been divided up fairly recently.  I just tucked that information away in my mind and carried on.  Incidentally when photographing that violet, here's the view if you stand up and turn around to face the other way:

Glasshouse Mts, Queensland.

Last weekend I was out walking and saw what looked like the same violet growing in a suburban garden in Wellington.  It was overhanging the footpath enough that I deemed it permissible to steal a little bit to photograph and to grow on in the garden at home.

Viola banksii, cultivated, Karori, Wellington, New Zealand.

Using the key Mike recommended and a recent paper in Austrobaileya (Little and Leiper 2013), I was able to satisfy myself that this is indeed V. banksii and not V. hederacea.  It doesn't necessarily mean the naturalised one is the same species though; I'll have to check the specimens next time I visit the Allan Herbarium at Landcare Research.

Reference.
Little, RJ; Leiper G, 2013.  Viola perreniformis (L.G.Adams) R.J.Little & G.Leiper, stat. nov., with notes on Australian species in Viola section Erpetion (Violaceae).  Austrobaileya 9: 80–101.