Violas, violets, pansies, johnny-jump-ups, you name it! This plant family has well over 500 species and the most dazzling rainbow of colors. The genus “viola” belongs to the violet family, Violaceae. They have a wide array of nicknames stemming from traditions and legends all over the world.

Pansy or Viola?

Technically, they all belong to the same family, but pansies are actually a cross between violas and wittrockiana. The way to tell them apart is by their petals. Both have five, but pansies have four petals pointing up and one petal pointing down, whereas violas have two petals pointing up and three pointing down. Generally, violas are smaller in overall size than taller growing pansies, which is why gardeners often pick pansies for their color and size.

Lore and Medicine

Pansies might be the most famous in Shakespear’s Midsummer Night’s Dream where they recount the legend of the white pansy turned purple from the strike of Cupid’s arrow. It serves as the main ingredient in the play’s love potion.

An odd German tale recounts that pansies once had such a sweet aroma that everyone would trample the earth to reach them. This left the plants squished from the stampedes, so the pansy prayed to give up its scent; hence why they have such a soft smell.

Lore aside, these flowers have a number of medicinal properties and are edible. They add a fun topping to your garden salads while potentially helping with respiratory and skin ailments. Sometime around the beginning of the 19th century, the viola tricolor, also called heartsease, began to be cultivated and hybridized. Wild heartsease is has been used in folk medicine and herbalism for epilepsy, skin irritation, and bronchitis.