Viola inconspicua - Modest Violet

Modest Violet is an almost stemless perennial herb, with purplish or white flowers, with darker striations. Flower-stalks are usually nearly equaling or slightly exceeding leaves, slender, hairless or finely velvet-hairy in upper part, 2-bracteolate slightly above middle; bracteoles linear. Sepals are ovate-lanceshaped, 4-7 × 1-1.8 mm, tip pointed, hairless or fringed with hairs; appendage elongated, (1.5-)2-3(-4.8) mm, shallowly incised. Petals are oblong-obovate, 7-9 mm; lateral ones bearded or rarely hairless; anterior one 1-1.2 cm (spur included); spur tubular, 1.8-3(-4) mm, straight, blunt. Spur of anterior stamens angular, base broad, tip pointed. Rhizomes are erect or obliquely rising up, 1-2 cm, robust, 2-8 mm in diameter, densely noded, with white roots. Leaves arise from the base, in a rosette. Stipules are 3-7 mm., leaf-stalks 2-7 cm, usually hairless or rarely shortly velvet-hairy. Leaves are triangular-ovate, 1.5-9 x 1-7 cm, about 1-2.2 times as long as wide, broadest at base, usually hairless, rarely finely velvet-hairy, base heart-shaped with usually prominent, rounded basal lobes, tip tapering or pointed. Capsules are oblong, 8-10 mm, hairless. is found in grasslands, field sides, path margins, forest margins, below altitudes of 1600 m, in NE India, China and parts of SE Asia. Flowering: November-May.