Appearance
"Viola lutea" grows to a height of around 20 centimetres. Its flowers are 20–35 mm in diameter, and are typically yellow, although some individuals may have blue, purple or blotched flowers instead.
Distribution
- "Viola lutea" subsp. "lutea" is native to central and north-western Europe, from the British Isles to Austria; another subspecies occurs further east, from Hungary to the Balkans. Within Great Britain, "V. lutea" is found only in upland areas north of a line drawn between the Severn and Humber estuaries; it ranges in altitude from 200 metres in Derbyshire to 1,070 m in Breadalbane. In Ireland, its distribution is more scattered geographically, and ranges vertically from sea level in County Clare to 380 m in the Wicklow Mountains.- Viola lutea subsp. calaminaria - the yellow zinc violet grows on heavy metal heaps (mainly Zn-contaminated soils) between Aachen, Germany and Liège, Belgium, with a spot distribution (Bizoux et al. 2004, 2008; Lucassen et al. 2010).
- Viola lutea subsp. westfalica - the blue zinc violet is found only at a medieval Cu–Pb mine and its surrounding meadow covering an area of 1 km × 0.5 km, with waste overflow from a ditch, at Blankenrode close to Paderborn, western Westphalia, Germany.
References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
Kuta, E., Bohdanowicz, J., Słomka, A. et al. Plant Syst Evol (2012) 298: 445.http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00606-011-0557-5
