Viola gracilis Sm.

Taxonomy: Fam. Violaceae// Genus: Viola// Species: Viola gracilis Sm.

Determined according to Valentine, Merxmüller and Schmidt in Tutin et al. (1968) and (Micevski, 1995).

Lifeform: Perennial; chemicryptophyte according to the Raunkiær system.

Distribution: Native to the Balkan Peninsula and Turkey according to the distribution information provided by the Plants of the World Online portal (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew); Albania and Turkey according to The Euro+Med PlantBase (Raab-Straube & Henning, 2018+). In North Macedonia it is mainly found in the east mountain region (Micevski, 1995).

Habitat:  Subalpine grasslands/ pastures and rocky terrains in the subalpine belt at c. 1500 m altitude upwards. It easily spreads in its native area on disturbed ground (mountain roadsides).

Flowering period: Late spring to early fall: MAY, JUN, JUL, AUG, SEP.

References:

Micevski, K. (1995). The Flora of the Republic of Macedonia Vol. I, Book 3. Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Viola gracilis Sm. Plants of the World Online portal, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:868245-1 [Accessed 10.12.2022].

Viola gracilis. Raab-Straube, E. von & Henning, T. (2018+): Violaceae. – In: Euro+Med Plantbase – the information resource for Euro-Mediterranean plant diversity. Published on the Internet https://europlusmed.org/cdm_dataportal/taxon/abb93e31-9cb9-4464-874b-42bb677a7225 [Accessed 10.12.2022].

Viola L. Valentine, D. H., Merxmüller, H. and Schmidt, A. Tutin, T.G., Heywood, V.H., Burges, N.A., Moore, D.M., Valentine, D.H., Walters, S.M., & Webb, D.A. (1968). Flora Europaea. Volume 2. Rosaceae to Umbelliferae. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 270 – 282.