Viola odorataL.

Sweet violet

WFO wfo-0000423364 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Viola odorata, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. a Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205538342
Viola odorata, photographed by tony_told_me
fig. b tony_told_me, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195370879
Viola odorata, photographed by engagenosey
fig. c engagenosey, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195673705
Viola odorata, photographed by Dag Endresen
fig. d Dag Endresen, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195834076
Viola odorata, photographed by Марина Садыкова
fig. e Марина Садыкова, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194745901
Viola odorata, photographed by Ian Whyte
fig. f Ian Whyte, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195436530
Viola odorata, photographed by Ian Whyte
fig. g Ian Whyte, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195444115
Viola odorata, photographed by Vladimír Fuka
fig. h Vladimír Fuka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194795234

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 7,633 observations

Peak flowering in Mar, from 7,633 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 31 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Viola austriaca A.Kern. & Jos.Kern.
  • Viola consimilis Jord.
  • Viola cyclophylla Gand.
  • Viola favratii Hausskn. ex Favrat
  • Viola floribunda Jord.
  • Viola gonzali Sennen
  • Viola hortensis Schur
  • Viola incompta Jord.
  • Viola jucunda Jord.
  • Viola maderensis Lowe
  • Viola odora Neck.
  • Viola odorata f. odorata
  • Viola odorata subsp. maderensis (Lowe) G.Kunkel
  • Viola odorata var. albiflora Pančić
  • Viola odorata var. incompta (Jord.) Espeut
  • Viola officinalis Crantz
  • Viola pirottae Chiov.
  • Viola plantaginea Webb ex Christ
  • Viola propinqua Jord.
  • Viola pseudosuavis Schur
  • Viola sarmentosa M.Bieb.
  • Viola spectabilis K.Richt.
  • Viola steveni Besser ex Fauc.
  • Viola stolonifera J.J.Rodr.

and 7 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.