kingdom Plantae - plants »  divisio Magnoliophyta - flowering plants »  class Rosopsida - eudicots » order Malpighiales »  family Violaceae »  tribus Violeae > genus Viola > section Viola sect. Nosphinium  W. Becker > Viola subsect. Nosphinium (W. Becker) ined.

Viola helenae Forbes & Lydgate 

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Critically Endangered !

Description: An erect, unbranched subshrub, 3-8 m tall. Leaves are long and narrow. Flowers are pale lavender or white. 

Distributional Range: Native Pacific NORTH-CENTRAL PACIFIC: United States [Hawaii (Wahiawa Mountains of Kauai )]

Habitat:   Wet forests and shrublands in gulch bottoms, gulch slopes, and on exposed ridgetops. 

Notes:  This species is in decline and its numbers have dropped since the 1990s. There are two populations left, one of which was decimated by a landslide in 2005, leaving only a fewseedlings and a seed pod. The other population, containing seven individuals, may be sterile and is too far from the first population to interbreed with it.

References:

1. Forbes, C.N. 1909. Some new Hawaiian plants. Occas. Pap. Bernice P. Bishop Mus. 4(3): 213-223.

2. Kartesz, J.T. 1994. A synonymized checklist of the vascular flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland. 2nd edition. 2 vols. Timber Press, Portland, OR.

3. MacCaughey, V. 1918. The Hawaiian Violaceae. Torreya 18: 1-11.

4. Skottsberg, C. 1940. Observations on Hawaiian violets. Acta Horti Gothob. 13: 451-528.

5. St. John, H. 1979. Resurrection of Viola lanaiensis Becker. Hawaiian plant studies 90. Phytologia 44: 323-324.

6. St. John, H. 1989. Revision of the Hawaiian species of Viola (Violaceae). Hawaiian plant studies 135. Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 111: 165-204.

7. Wagner, W.L., D.R. Herbst, and S.H. Sohmer. 1990. Manual of the flowering plants of Hawaii. Univ. Hawaii Press and Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu. 1853 pp.