Roses Are Red, Violets are...

EDIBLE!

Yesterday by the big live oak I spotted something real colorful and called Tricia over to see it.  Wild violets were blooming in several places between the base of the tree and a concrete bench. They are hard to miss with the beautiful blue color and the heart shaped, dark green leaves.  It is kind of neat that something this pretty just comes up on its own in the wild.  I can remember these from when I was a boy. They grew up wild in our yard in Green Oak.

Wild Violets

It pops up year after year in the same place and there are numerous violets now around the base of the tree.

Beautiful Wild Louisiana Violet

Here is a picture of one of the violets from a distance.  You can see the heart shaped leaves and at least three flowers on this plant.  But that's not all...

Violets are edible!  I learned AT THIS SITE some interesting things about violets:

Flowers: Viola pedata, V. palmata, V. langlosii, V. primulifolia

Members of the Viola family (Violets) are some of the first flowers to appear in early spring. Violets are an excellent ground cover plant for shady or part sunny areas and can be used in place of expensive, high maintenance exotic turf grass.

The flowers can be blue, purple or white. The leaves and flowers are edible and are rich in vitamins A and C. Violas are the host plant for the Variegated Fritillary Butterfly. There are many varieties of Violets that are native to Louisiana and the Gulf Coast states.

I have seen them in blue, purple and white colors, but I never knew they were edible and very healthy for you.  We had picked some fresh lettuce from the garden, so I figured that I would surprise Tricia and pick some violet flowers and leaves and add them to our salad as well.  Here's what it looked like:

A beautiful, healthy and tasty Violet Salad

Not only was the salad delicious and pleasing to the eye, but it was pleasing to the taste buds as well. I ate the violet leaves by themselves and found them to be tasty. I ate the flowers with a big forkful of lettuce and carrots, so I couldn't tell you specifically how the flower tasted.  It is very interesting to know that we are surrounded by edible things that we overlook almost every day.  Nice to learn about edible flowers growing wild in our yard!