A New Violet in Town, and It's Yellow!

 A week ago I posted new leaves of this Violet but it wasn't yet blooming.  I found my first one blooming today on Radio Hill.  It's Viola pinetorum, or the Pine Violet.  Problem is there are several other species that are sometimes known as Pine Violets.  A good reason to learn the Latin.  Only one Latin name per species.  That's a rule.  A similar looking one, the Stream Violet, Viola glabella, hasn't bloomed yet and when it does, it'll be in a very different habitat.

I'm repeating my photo of Shelton's Violet, AKA Fan Violet, Viola sheltonii, because the blossoms of these two species are very similar, but the leaves, as you can see, are radically different.  By the end of April, we'll be able to find a couple more species of yellow violets plus one white and one violet species.  And that's not counting all the cultivated varieties and hybrids that get loose from gardens, including the Pansies which are also in the Genus Viola.  Feel free to ignore all this tech talk and just enjoy looking, drawing, photographing, and conversing about violets.  So, why are they called violets?  Believe it or not, the flower was named before violet became the name of a color.