kingdom Plantae - plants »  divisio Magnoliophyta - flowering plants »  class Rosopsida - eudicots » order Malpighiales »  family Violaceae »  tribus Violeae > genus Viola > section Viola sect. Chamaemelanium Ging. > Viola subsect. Biflorae J. C. Clausen   

Viola biflora L. 

| Bio Lib | plantarium.ru | Botanikim |  eFlora North America|  eFlora of China 

Common names: alpine yellow violet  (Engl.); two-flower violet  (Engl.); banfsa (Hindi); kibana-no-komanotsume - キバナノコマノツメ  (Japanese Rōmaji); fjällviol  (Swedish); Фиалка двухцветковая (Russian); 双花堇菜 shuang hua jin cai  (Chines)

Distributional Range: Native Asia-Temperate RUSSIAN FAR EAST: Russian Federation [Kurile Islands]

• Asia-Temperate 

  • WESTERN ASIA: Afghanistan

  • SIBERIA: Russian Federation, [Gorno-Altay, Tyumen] Russian Federation-Eastern Siberia [Eastern Siberia]

  • MIDDLE ASIA: Kazakhstan

  • MONGOLIA: Mongolia

  • RUSSIAN FAR EAST: Russian Federation [Kurile Islands, Khabarovsk, Primorye, Amur, Kamchatka]

  • CHINA: China [Heilongjiang Sheng, Henan Sheng, Hebei Sheng, Hunan Sheng, Gansu Sheng, Jilin Sheng, Liaoning Sheng, Shanxi Sheng, Shandong Sheng, Shaanxi Sheng, Sichuan Sheng, Qinghai Sheng, Nei Mongol Zizhiqu, Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu, Xizang Zizhiqu]

  • EASTERN ASIA: Japan, [Hokkaidô, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku] Korea, Taiwan

• 
  

• Asia-Tropical 

  • INDIAN SUBCONTINENT: Bhutan, India, [Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Sikkim, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal]Nepal, Pakistan

  • MALESIA: Indonesia [Sumatera (n.)]

• 
  

• Europe 

  • NORTHERN EUROPE: Finland, Norway

  • MIDDLE EUROPE: Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Switzerland

  • EASTERN EUROPE: Russian Federation-European part [European part]

  • SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE: Bulgaria, Former Yugoslavia, Italy, Romania

  • SOUTHWESTERN EUROPE: France (incl. Corsica), Spain

• 
  

• Northern America 

  • SUBARCTIC AMERICA: Canada, [Yukon (w.-c.)] United States [Alaska (s.)]

  • WESTERN CANADA: Canada [British Columbia]

1. Czerepanov, S. K. 1995. Vascular plants of Russia and adjacent states (the former USSR) Cambridge University Press.

Viola biflora is a member of section Chamaemelanium, subsection Biflorae, a group of several geographically separated races distributed on high mountain ranges around the North Pole. Viola biflora migrated from Eurasia across the Bering land bridge to western North America where it is now found in Alaska, the Yukon Territory, British Columbia and Colorado. It is the only species of this subsection in North America. 

Viola biflora may be the most widely distributed species of the genus in the Northern Hemisphere. Although occurring most often in mountainous areas at high elevations, it is known from Alaska near the coast at elevations of ca. 45 m (PNW Herbaria Portal 2010) and has been reported from lowland meadows in Kamchatka (V. B. Baird 1942), and is occasionally found near sea level in exposed rocky habitats on the west coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands (R. A. Calder and R. L. Taylor 1968).

Sometimes described as high latitude, circumpolar, Viola biflora also occurs in mid latitudes north of the equator. It is not truly circumpolar; it does not occur in eastern Canada or in Greenland. The deeply cleft style head sets V. biflora apart from all other species in North America. V. B. Baird (1942) suggested that the occasional presence of two cleistogamous flowers in the axil of the same leaf may account for the name “biflora.”