This is the Illinois State Flower?

The first spring I moved into my house, the violets were thing that bloomed most prolifically in my yard. I thought they were cute. In fact, I liked them so much I transplanted them to the garden bed around the foundation of my house.

I paid for that mistake for several years afterwards. Once I found out that most people in the neighborhood consider them to be a weed, I spent several seasons trying to get rid of them.

The violets stayed firmly in the weed category until last Memorial Day weekend, when I went to the Madison, WI farmer’s market and found people selling them—at $5 for 3 plants—on Saturday morning. A sign nearby told browsers that they were the Wisconsin state flower. I wondered if I should reconsider my stance on the violets.

It turns out that they are not just the Wisconsin state flower, but the Illinois state flower as well. A group of school children anointed the violet with this honor over 100 years ago, in 1907. Who knew that was possible for a common lawn weed?

My new book, Swink and Wilhelm’s Plants of the Chicago Region, lists about 2 dozen different species of violet known to grow in the Chicago area. Differentiating them is difficult, and they are apparently known to interbreed. According to Illinois Wildflowers, the common blue violet (Viola sororia) is a native perennial plant. Leaves emerge from rhizomes, that bumpy little cluster I see where the leaves meet the roots when I pull violets out of the ground. The plants like to grow in moist soil and partial shade, and they do very well in my lawn. The flowers and young leaves are apparently edible, though bland, and can be added to salads in small amounts (I’m not sure I want to try this!).

Swink and Wilhelm describe the plant as “weedy” and common in abandoned fields, lawns, and degraded prairies. Judging by how much time I spend hoeing violet seedlings out of my vegetable patch, I’m thinking that description of these little plants is an understatement.

The U of I Cooperative Extension Office has posted an amusing poem about the violet, and it sheds some light on how children may have voted it the state flower. They are, after all, kind of cute, and kids do like to pick them. I haven’t gotten a little bouquet of violets as a gift from the kids yet, but I’d be willing to bet it’s coming.

I'll be pulling the violets this year, because if I let them, they wouldn't make room for anything else.