Viola sempervirens

I just thought I'd take a moment to share some of the native flora of this area with you.

I'm a slow hiker. I spend a lot of time looking around me--into the bushes, along the ground, up in the trees. I'm always watching for those hidden bits of beauty that spice up the otherwise ordinary lanscape.

Viola sempervirens is something I see very often on our trips through the woods. Also known as the Evergreen violet or Redwood violet, it enjoys moist, partly-shady conditions. I came across a good clump of these guys while we were hiking College Cove in Trinidad a couple of weeks ago, in an area very near to the ocean. They're also seen very often in the redwood forests. Aside from the skunk cabbage, they're the only yellow flower I can remember seeing so far this spring.

Sidenote: 9th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest  1) Sounds cool, maybe I'll find some things to enter 2) It runs from March 1, 2011, to December 1, 2011. How many hundreds of thousands of entries do you think they'll get?