Viola arvensis Murray
field pansy
Annual, with short-lived rosette; stems erect or ascending, with short hairs or glabrous, 7-30 cm tall. Lvs (1)-2-6 cm long, glabrous or with short hairs, with 3-7 crenations each side. Basal lvs broadly ovate, truncately narrowed to long petiole; stipules short, linear-lobed. Stem lvs becoming narrow-elliptic, the uppermost cuneately narrowed to short petiole; stipules usually pinnatifid, 1/2-3/4 lf length, with leaflike terminal lobe, and 3-7 linear lateral lobes. Peduncles erect, glabrous; bracts short, narrowly triangular. Fls 1-2.5 cm diam. Sepals narrowly triangular, acute, 5-8 mm long; appendages 2-3 mm long. Petals cream, the upper < or = the upper sepals, the lowest with yellow or orange blotch and purple veins, the lowest and lateral bearded; spur c. 3 mm long, = sepal appendages. Style geniculate at base, 1 mm long; stigma globose; ligule 0. Capsule ellipsoid, glabrous, 5-10 mm long. Seeds oblong, pale brown, 1.5 mm long.
N.: Northland, Wellington; S.: Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, Otago, Southland.
Europe Caucasia, Siberia 1875
Gardens, fields, wasteland, railway ballast, roadsides.
FL (Sep)-Oct-Feb-(May) FT (Sep)-Oct-Apr-(May).
The lower surface of the stigma in field pansy does not have a ligule to shield it from self-pollination as in the similar sp. V. tricolor (Fig. 123). This sp. has also been referred to in N.Z. as V. tricolor var. arvensis.
