Viola tenuisecta Zumwalde & H.E.Ballard
Detail
- Family
- Violaceae
- Botanical Name
- Viola tenuisecta Zumwalde & H.E.Ballard
- Common Name
- Virginia Shale Woodland Violet
- Synonym(s)
- Viola pedatifida G. Don (misapplied)
- Flora of Virginia Name/Status
- Viola pedatifida G. Don (misapplied)
- Comments
- This remarkable two-county endemic was at first mistaken for the Midwestern Viola pedatifida, but was recently named and described as a new species by Harvey Ballard (Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society, 150(1): 235-240, 2023). First found by Paul M. Patterson and Lena Artz, May 6, 1936, and reported in Violets of Virginia (Patterson, 1939). A second station was found by R.B. Platt in 1946 and reported by him in Castanea 15:126-129 (1950). The Virginia populations were omitted in the violet monograph by Russell (1965) with brief mention that "in the southeastern Appalachians, V. palmata is sometimes so similar to V. pedatifida that it is mistaken for it." Without specimens in any Virginia herbaria, it "dropped from view", being subsequently omitted through previous editions of the Atlas of the Virginia Flora. Two populations were re-discovered in 2006 at or near the original site and an extensive study of the taxon was initiated by Ballard soon thereafter.
- Habitat
- Shale barrens and open shaly woods; routinely associated with various shale barren endemics. Rare, wc. mountains; the entire known global range is in Alleghany and Bath counties (Ridge and Valley province).
- Native Status
- Native
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