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Easing the Heart in Winter or Summer

I see the council are putting out the obligatory winter pansies in tubs and spring bedding schemes now. The large, much put-upon flowers seem to cope with battering from wind, rain and splashes of mud all through the season, and freeze and thaw resignedly. The colours are simple, bright and sturdy, like plastic children’s toys left out in the rain, and if they do eventually tend to become moth-eaten, you have to admire their resilience.

They are cultivars of Viola x wittrockiana, which is itself a horticultural hybrid among whose many parents is the Wild Pansy, or Heartsease. We came upon throngs of Heartsease blowing among the poor soils of ancient lead mines in County Durham, showing a wide variation in colour and pattern - from the three coloured yellow, mauve and white forms which give the species its Latin name Viola tricolor, to blooms in shades of purple alone. All had the exquisite whiskered faces that made pansies my favourite childhood flower. You might find them on the open grassy slopes of hillsides, such as Glen Tilt, in summer.

Don’t be fooled by the common name into thinking Heartsease will treat heart complaints – the heart problems with which pansies are associated are emotional ones. Shakespeare, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, had Oberon squeezing the juice of the flowers into Titania’s eyes to invoke the spell which has her falling in love with ass-headed Bottom (who was probably less devious than her husband anyway). But the plant does have some medicinal uses, among which are the treatment of skin conditions, varicose ulcers, bronchitis and rheumatism.

It would be no surprise to botanists if pansies’ association with love is linked to promiscuity. They are exuberant in their tendency to hybridise and back-cross with each other in shameless fashion (much to the delight of plant breeders of course). But to sort out the commoner wild species: If you find wild pansies on lime-rich soils, such as Ben Lawers, and they are purple through and through, they are probably the mountain pansy, Viola lutea. (Lutea means yellow, but you have to go to Yorkshire to find pure yellow ones).

If the flowers are scrawny, minute, and whitish, and you find them while walking through a stubble field or cultivated land, they are the Field Pansy, Viola arvensis. All charming in their way, but if you find them growing anywhere near each other, avert your gaze, they will soon be “at it”!

Like their close relation the Sweet Violet, pansies, wild and cultivated, are delightful edible flowers. They are lovely eaten whole in salads, or used to garnish drinks and desserts. That is, if you can get past your childhood fixation about their lovely little faces having human feelings and responses – in which case just let them breed, go to seed and spread around the garden!

© Margaret Lear, Bankfoot

www.plantswithpurpose.co.uk