Violet / Ljubičica

Description:

Viola species typically have heart-shaped, scalloped leaves.The flowers are formed from five petals; four are upswept or fan-shaped petals with two per side, and there is one broad, lobed lower petal pointing downward.Viola flowers are most often spring blooming with chasmogamous flowers with well-developed petals pollinated by insects.

Habitat:

In the shady and semi-shady places in the forest. As a wild plant it is growing in deciduous forests, among bushes and thickets, along roads and hedges.

Notes:

It contains salicylic acid, an alcaloid viola, odoratin- a medicinal compound, violet essential oil, vitamin C, carotene ...Therefore if often used in alternative medicine and pharmacy as well as the perfume industry. One quirk of some viola is the elusive scent of their flowers; along with terpenes, a major component of the scent is a ketone compound called ionone, which temporarily desensitises the receptors of the nose, thus preventing any further scent being detected from the flower until the nerves recover. (...) Something from mythology about this beautiful flower. According to Greek mythology, not so nice looking Hephaestus seduced his beloved Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, coz she was so overwhelmed with a smell and beauty of this flower. Zeus, the supreme god of Olympus, once filled a meadow with violets just to console his lover because he was forces to transform her into a cow because his wife Here was very jealous. The myth about a creation and the origin of this flowers is associated with a tragic love story between Attis (meaning "the one who has no luck" was a god of young vegetation) and CybeIe (powerful goddess considered "the mother nature"). When Attis fell in love with a beautiful nymph Sagaritida, Cybele was so angry that she punished him with mental insanity and in the end death. In the first rush of madness he castrated himself and from this blood drops fallen on the grownd were born the very first violets that look like dry blood drops.