Birds-foot Violets thrive in wood openings and dry, sandy fields. I never found them in Ohio because so many of my wildflower excursions were into the woods (over the river yes, but never quite to grandmother's house). It was a different story in northern Indiana and North Carolina, where wood openings and dry, sandy fields abound. Great patches of these lovely spring-blooming Violets carpeted sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and up north, in Indiana, they thrived in the sandy dunes, among the Wild Lupine and Hairy Puccoon.
Birds-foot Violets are named for the fan-shaped leaves, which are deeply segmented. If someone was going to name them for their appearance, you would think they might have come up with something more along the lines of "Look at Me I'm a Beautiful" Violet. The flowers, larger than most Violets at up to 1 1/2", have 5 beardless petals. The lower petal is whitish with violet veins. The 5 stamens have conspicuous orange anthers in the gullet of the flower. The bi-colored variety, in which the 2 upper petals are deep purple while the bottom 3 petals are a lighter shade of lilac, is considered, by many wildflower aficionados, to be the most beautiful Violet in the world.
Similarly, I read about Long-spurred Violets (V. rostrata) long before I finally encountered them, which, for the first time, was in southwestern Michigan. Like Birds-foot Violets, they are much easier to identify than most of their kin.
These are named for the obvious long spur that protrudes from the rear of the flower, not unlike the noggin of a slavering, retractable-jawed, flesh eating alien from another planet. That, in itself, makes them easy to identify. Other notable field markings include the flowers' color, a pale lavender, and the toothed stipules in the leaf axils. Also, the petals are pre-pubescently beardless.
Long-spurred Violets can be found in rich woods and limy soil, from Wisconsin to Vermont, south to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut, and in the mountains to Georgia.
I found a similar species, Dog Violet (V. conspersa), in the damp woods of western Tennessee. Its pale bluish flowers have a shorter spur, but that's nothing to be self-conscious about because, where Long-spurred violets are beardless, the 2 lateral petals of the Dog Violet have a manly beard. And like their well-endowed cousins, they have toothed stipules in the leaf axils.
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