Mother's Herb Garden: Sweet Violet

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Violet flowers are slightly laxative and are also a gentle expectorant, but at one time herbalists believed that the syrup of violets would cure almost everything from ague to pleurisy! (Syrup of violets can be made by pouring 2 1/2 pints of boiling water over 1 pound of flowers and steeping them overnight, straining the liquid, adding double its weight in sugar, and then cooking it —without letting it come to a boil — into syrup. The juice of half a lemon may be added for extra vitamin C and piquancy.) The roots and seeds of sweet violet are purgatives. Combined with vinegar, the roots can be used to make a liniment long recommended for spleen disorders and gout. The seeds are diuretic and are supposed to be a good corrective for gravel.

In addition to their medicinal uses, the flowers can be eaten in salads; crystallized as beautiful candies; added to vinegar to impart color and fragrance; made into a rare and delicate jelly; boiled, pressed, pounded, and mixed with milk, rice flour and sugar into a porridge; and even fermented to produce a sweet wine. Since the blue color is released by infusion, violets have been used to create delicate eyeshadows and fragrant, tinted skin lotions. (A curious feature of the infused color is its property of turning red when in contact with acid, and green when in contact with an alkali. Because of this reaction, it has been used as a substitute for litmus.)

Violets are fond of deep, humus-rich and slightly sandy soil, and prefer moist, shaded locations such as those found in open areas under trees. They are easily propagated from seed, cuttings or — more usually — by division of the creeping rhizome in spring or fall.

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