These are Pansies, right?

[ShellieESterling]

My grandmother and mother call them pansies. I haven't looked them up yet, I've got 5 or 6 different color varieties growing wild in our front flower beds by the bishop's weed.

 

[tricia]

They are either pansies or violets. I think the difference is just that violets are smaller and perrenial.

 

[Buff Shallots]

If I remember my lessons correctly, both violets and pansies belong to the same family "Viola". I believe that family returns year after year through casting their seeds, rather than having roots that throw up new growth like a perennial does.

By the way, gorgeous pics! ! !

 

[rebbetzin]

Oh I love those!! I love little "Johnny Jump Ups" as I have always called them.They seldom reseed here in my garden! I have to buy them new each fall, they grow all winter here... I still have a few "hanging on" in spite of the heat!!

 

[patandchickens]

They actually look more like the biennial violets I have here than like pansies (pansies usually have larger flatter wider faces -- how big are these things? If >1" I'd say pansies. It is a slightly arbitrary distinction though)

They're quite pretty, esp. the white-with-yellow one!

Pat

 

[Reinbeau]

Technically they are violas, the common name for 'small pansies'. The last one is a typical Johnny-jump-up, or Viola tricolor. That yellow and white one (first one) shows how close they are to violets, all in the same family, but some varieties of violets can be pretty invasive, with tenacious roots and cleistogamous flowers that you never really see (they're close to the ground) but produce seeds that ants carry around and spread all over. The pansy type violas are biennials or short-lived perennials that are fairly easy to get rid of if you don't like them where you have them. Here's what happens in my yard every spring before I get tough and pull them:

 

[ShellieESterling]

They look just like Reinbeau's flowers there. I've seen that they're edible for wild salads, is this correct?

 

[patandchickens]

Yup, they're edible, although the effect is IMO more decorative than tasty. (According to my 3 yr old son, they taste like "wet purple paper" )

You can dip them in beaten (to a foam) eggwhite and then in sugar to make crystallized violets to decorate a cake or whatever. THey don't last long but they're purty.

Pat, wishing that mine would seed themselves around a bit better -- they only seeem to *just* replace themselves, unfortunately.

 

[Reinbeau]

Yup, they're edible, although the effect is IMO more decorative than tasty. (According to my 3 yr old son, they taste like "wet purple paper" )

That's priceless! Out of the mouths of babes.....

 

[ShellieESterling]

wishing that mine would seed themselves around a bit better -- they only seeem to *just* replace themselves, unfortunately.

Really? There's usually a good amount of them in the cracks outside the pavers on the raised beds, but this year, since we're all about the move, I've been neglecting things outside and they're multiplying like crazy. Matter of factly, I have more of these flowers than bishop's weed!