Field Notes—

The Wild Violets Of May

By Curtiss Clark

May comes up out of the ground in every color. Grass greens, daffodil yellows, redbud reds, and dogwood whites. But for me, the soul of May is blue. Its crown is lilac and its socks are violet.

The lilac always steals the show in May, with its astonishing hue and perfume, but it is the lowly violets that always ground me in this heady month.

I was born in May. Kate was born in May. We were married in May. So, November notwithstanding, this is for us the month for thanksgiving. It is the month for mindfulness and noticing and accepting the gifts that spring lays at our feet. And throughout the lawn, along the shady edges of the yard, and on the forest floor, violets have been laid before us as if we were royalty. The value of the gift, however, is only paid in full if we bow down to this little flower and have a look and inhale. It is a delicate and temporal thing that blooms just for spring and is gone by summer.

This delicacy may have been what they had in mind when they started calling extremely shy persons “shrinking violets.” The plant, however, is anything but shy. It thrives in a variety of environments and is considered an invasive weed by many gardeners and green lawn perfectionists. The violet patches in our lawn have been expanding in the time that we have owned the place, which would be of great concern to most lawn monoculturists. But we like it and hold off on the first cutting so that we can enjoy the violets, bugleweed (ajuga), and grape hyacinth that lace the lawn with blue at this time of year.

There are several species of wild violets indigenous to New England that range in color from deep purple to white. We have some white ones growing under a dogwood tree that have veins of purple branching out from their centers.

Both the blossoms and the heart-shaped leaves of wild violets are edible and are best in the spring when they are so easily identified as they bloom. The leaves are a good source of vitamins C and A. But it is the flowers that are the most fun to add to salads, or even to desserts. In folk medicine, violet flowers are also said to reduce fever and purify the blood, which, I suppose, makes anything you put them on a health food. The color of the blossom can leach into vanilla ice cream in the most delicious way.

One traditional way of dying Easter eggs in Italy was to throw some violet blossoms into the water to boil for a while with the eggs.

Violets have been part of village life in Italy since the time of the Romans. When Mount Vesuvius erupted on August 24, 79 AD, it buried Pompeii and some other lesser-known villages, preserving that date in the area’s geological record. A carbonized store of hay unearthed in one of those villages, Oplontis, has given researchers a good idea of what was growing in the countryside earlier that year — lots of violets.

Unlike the hapless Oplontians on that fateful day, the humble violets growing in my yard reassure me that I’m in the right place at the right time. It’s May, the month with the soul of blue.