We had been directed to two sites for this violet and found less than twenty at one site only. The plant grows in medium to short grassland 20 metres or so from the edge of a Lough in Ireland and is very difficult to find even when you know exactly where to look. It also hybridises with Viola canina to produce a bluish canina looking flower (Viola x ritschliana) but with the long leaves and cuneate/truncate base of Viola persicifolia. The leaf shape is the determining feature. A pale, whitish violet with long narrow leaves makes it easy to determine if only you can find the thing in the first place. Unfortunately the grass obscures the leaves in this photo.

Viola persicifolia is found in a few places in east Anglia and Lincolnshire (or was at one time) and in the west of Ireland. It is absent from the rest of Ireland, England and all of Wales and Scotland.

Edge of Lough in County Clare, Ireland 21st May 2005

Added on May 24th 2005, corrected April 18th 2006, updated 24th February 2012