Viola banksii, Como, New South Wales, Australia

Viola banksii K.R.Thiele & Prober

Australian Native Violet, Banks Violet, Banks' Violet, Native Violet

Climate known 94 photographs

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Viola banksii, commonly known as native violet, is sold and grown throughout garden nurseries and grown and loved in gardens around Australia, especially in the east. For many years it was known as Viola hederacea, however, the species complex was revised in 2004 by Kevin Thiele, with the name Viola banksii being published in 2003 by Kevin Thiele and Suzanne Prober. Although the Native Violet was initially collected by Banks and Solander, the type specimen was either lost or not provided until a collection by Jacques Labillardière in Tasmania. Thiele discovered that the original type specimen of V. hederacea collected by Labillardière was not the same as the hardier and showier plant later collected, cultivated and widely sold. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Viola banksii”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Viola

The viola ( vee-OH-lə, Italian: [ˈvjɔːla, viˈɔːla]) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. The viola is slightly larger than the violin and has a lower sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth higher) and the cello (which is tuned an octave lower). More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Viola”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family

Violaceae

Described by

K.R.Thiele & Prober

Native to

New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria

Wild records

1546 in range· 829 open

At a glance

Warmest month

26°C

Jan, mean day; nights 20 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1185mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Feb 150 mm (CHELSA)

Light

16–42DLI

mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)

In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person

Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1185 mm a year, wettest February at 150 mm, driest September at 59 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 42 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 6.0 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Viola hederacea subsp. elatines DC.; Viola reniformis (Sweet) Endl.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (909 mm of 1185 mm) takes 8 months, November to June. Mean temperature moves 9.7 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: May to December.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1185 mm a year, wettest February at 150 mm, driest September at 59 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1185 mm a year at the habitat, 909 mm of it November to June. Wettest month February at 150 mm, driest September at 59 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 857 mm to 1574 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 42 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 14, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 6.0 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 6.0 °C, the absolute minimum 3.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 37.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 9.6 °C in July (across the envelope cells 5.5 °C to 12.1 °C), warmest day 25.5 °C in January (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 6.0 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 63% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 678 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale

Figures by month

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	26 / 24–28	25 / 23–27	24 / 22–26	21 / 19–24	19 / 16–21	16 / 13–19	16 / 13–18	17 / 14–20	20 / 16–23	22 / 18–25	23 / 20–26	25 / 22–28
Night °C	20 / 15–22	20 / 15–22	18 / 14–20	16 / 11–18	13 / 9–16	11 / 7–13	10 / 6–12	10 / 6–13	12 / 8–15	14 / 10–17	16 / 12–19	18 / 14–20
Rain mm	103 / 72–169	150 / 95–217	117 / 67–197	121 / 77–167	109 / 66–142	100 / 63–127	70 / 47–92	62 / 44–76	59 / 43–75	85 / 67–101	109 / 83–139	100 / 77–163
DLI	41 / 40–43	36 / 35–38	31 / 30–33	25 / 23–27	19 / 17–22	16 / 14–20	18 / 16–22	24 / 22–27	32 / 29–34	37 / 36–38	40 / 39–41	42 / 41–44
RH %	62 / 59–64	63 / 60–65	62 / 60–65	61 / 59–63	60 / 58–62	59 / 57–62	57 / 55–60	56 / 54–58	57 / 55–59	58 / 56–60	60 / 58–62	61 / 58–63

Each figure is the median across the 678 grid cells holding the 1496 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2383:6663 (-29.175, 153.175). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 3.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 6.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 37.1 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 678 distinct grid cells holding the 1496 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2383:6663 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -29.00_153.125, lapse-corrected -72 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 19 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.

Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.

NativeNew South Wales, Queensland, Victoria

Kew's description“subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker-33.951, 150.975 · in the densest population, 1060 records (69% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1546 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 829 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 357 km away. 215 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 50 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 1546 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (7); (c) jonathon love, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Viola banksii, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Comprehensive characteristics and genetic diversity of the endemic Australian Viola banksii (section Erpetion, Violaceae)

Monika Kwiatkowska, Justyna Żabicka, Grzegorz Migdałek, Piotr Żabicki (2019) · Australian Journal of Botany

New species and a new hybrid in the Viola hederacea species complex, with notes on Viola hederacea Labill

Kevin R. Thiele, Suzanne M. Prober (2003) · Muelleria An Australian Journal of Botany

Occurrence Download