Viola canina Heath Dog-violet

A perennial violet with striking blue-violet flowers. It is similar to Common Dog-violet but its flowers have a yellow spur and the leaves are more pointed. Although it is known widely as a heathland plant and a species of acid habitats, as its name suggests, it is also found in coastal sand dunes. It has a widespread but rather scattered distribution in Britain, but it has decreased significantly in many of its former sites mainly as a result of habitat loss. It occurs as two subspecies in the British Flora, subspecies canina and the much rarer subspecies ruppii. In West Glamorgan it is represented as Viola canina ssp. canina and it is almost exclusively a plant of coastal dunes.

Native