Of March Violets: Medicinal and Culinary Lore
Family: Violaceae
Names: Violet, Sweete Violet, Viola nigra, Viola purpure, Virgil Vaccinium, Viola, Marche violet, Viola porporea, Viola mammola, Violetas, Violette de Mars, Blauw veiel, Mertzen violen, Violetten, Violaria, Mater violarum.
Usage: Culinary, Medical
– Barbara Johnson
Family: Violaceae
Names: Violet, Sweete Violet, Viola nigra, Viola purpure, Virgil Vaccinium, Viola, Marche violet, Viola porporea, Viola mammola, Violetas, Violette de Mars, Blauw veiel, Mertzen violen, Violetten, Violaria, Mater violarum.
Usage: Culinary, Medical
Botanical Lore
This selection of violet descriptions and applications is drawn from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century herbals, cookbooks, and household manuals. Sweet violets were prized for their scent, cooling properties, and spiritual associations. Wild violets, though weaker in medicinal strength, were still used for their demure beauty and edible flowers.
📜 A Nievve Herball, 1554: Of Marche Violets
✰ The Kyndes.
There be two sortes of Violets: the garden and the wilde Violet. The Garden violets are of a fayre darke or shining deepe blewe colour, and a very pleasant and amiable smell. The wilde Violets are without sauour, and of a fainte blewe or pale colour.
✰ The Description.
[1] The sweete Garden or Marche violet, creepeth alongst ye ground like the Strawberie plante, fastening it selfe and taking roote in diuers places: his leaues be rounde and blackish like to Iuye leaues, sauing they be smaller, rounder, and tenderer: emongst the whiche leaues there springeth vp fayre & pleasant floures of a darke blew colour, eache floure growing alone by him selfe, vpon a little small and tender stemme. The floures are diuided into fiue small leaues, wherof the middle of the floures, with the tippes or poynted endes of the leaues are speckled or spotted with a certayne reddish yellow. After the floures there appeareth round bullets, or huskes full of seede, the whiche being ripe do open and diuide themselues into three partes, the roote is tender & of threddish strings.
Of this sorte, there is an other kinde planted in gardens, whose floures are very double, and full of leaues.
There is also a thirde kinde, bearing floures as white as snow.
And also a fourth kinde (but not very common) whose floures be of a darke Crymsen, or old reddish purple colour, in all other poyntes like to the first, as in his leaues, seede, and growing.
[2] The wilde is like to the garden Violet, but that his leaues are far smaller, his floures are somwhat greater, but much paler, yea sometimes almost white, and without sauour.
✰ The Place.
The sweete garden Violet, groweth vnder hedges, and about the borders of fieldes and pastures, in good ground and fertyle soyle, and it is also set and planted in gardens. The wilde kinde whiche is without smell, groweth in the borders of dry, leane, and barren fieldes.
The garden violet floureth in Marche and Aprill. The wilde also doth floure in Aprill, and afterwardes.
✰ The Names.
The sweete Violet is called in Greeke Ion: in Latine Viola nigra, Viola purpurea: & of Virgil Vaccinium: in Shoppes Viola: in English Violets, the garden Violet, the sweete Violet, and the Marche violet : in Italian Viola porporea, and Viola mammola: in Spanish Violetas: in Frenche Violette de Mars, ou de quaresme: in high Douch Blauw veiel, or Mertzen violen: in base Almaigne Violetten: the Violet plante or herbe is called in Shoppes Violaria, and Mater violarum.
✰ The cause of the Greeke name.
The sweete Violet (as the Emperour Constantine wryteth) was called in Greeke Ion, after the name of that sweete guirle or pleasant damosell Io, which Iupiter, after that he had gotte her with childe, turned her into a trim Heaffer or gallant Cowe, bycause that his wife Iuno (beyng bothe an angry and Ielous Goddesse) should not suspect that he loued Ion. In the honour of which his Io, as also for her more delicate and holsome feeding, the earth at the commaundement of Iupiter brought foorth Violettes, the whiche after the name of his welbeloued Io, he called in Greeke Ion: and therefore they are also called in Latine, as some do wryte, Violae, quasi vitulae & Vaccinia. Nicander wryteth, that the name of Ion was giuen vnto Violettes, bycause of the Nymphes of Ionia, who firste of all presented Iupiter with these kindes of floures.
✰ The Nature or Temperament.
Violets are colde in the first degree, and moyst in the second.
✰ The Vertues.
- [A] The Decoction of Violets is good against hoate feuers, and the inflammation of the Liuer, and all other inwarde partes, driuing forth by siege the hoate and cholerique humors. The like propertie hath the iuyce, syrupe, or conserue of the same.
- [B] The syrupe of Violets is good against the inflammation of the lunges and breast, and against the Pleurisie, and cough, and also against feuers or Agues, but especially in yong children.
- [C] The same Syrupe cureth all inflammations and roughnesse of the throte if it be much kept or often holden in the mouth. The sugar of violets, and also the conserue, and iuyce, bringeth the same to passe.
- [D] That yellow whiche is in the middest of the floures, boyled in water, is good to be gargled in the throte agaynst the squinancie or swelling in the throte: it is also good to be dronken agaynst the falling sickenesse in yong children.
- [E] Violets pounde and layde to the head alone, or mengled with oyle, remooueth the extreame heate, swageth head-ache, prouoketh sleepe, and moysteneth the brayne: it is good therefore against the drynesse of the head, against melancholy, and dulnesse or heauinesse of Spirite.
- [F] Violets brused or stamped with barlie meale, are good to be layde vpon phlegmons, that is to say, hoate unpostumes or carbuncles, and they heale the inflammation and paine of the eyes, also the hoate vlcers, and the inflammation that commeth with the falling downe of the fundament.
- [G] The seede of Violettes, dronken with wine or water, is good agaynst the stingings of Scorpions.
- [H] The herbe or plante is very good against hoate feuers, and the inflammations of the liuer, and looseth the belly.
- [I] The wilde Violets are almost of the same vertue, but they be a great deale weaker, and therefore they are not vsed in Medicine.
Historical Texts & Recipes
- 1554 – A Nievve Herball: Differentiates wild and garden violets, notes color variants (deep blue, white, crimson), and describes their creeping habit. Attributes their Greco-Roman name to the myth of Io and Jupiter.
- 1588 – Prepositas, A Compendious Treatise:
- Mell Violatum: A syrup of violets and honey, helpful in hot fevers and dryness of chest and stomach.
- Oil of Violets: Made by sun-steeping violets in olive oil and used topically for inflammation and lung complaints.
- 1659 – Culpeper’s School of Physick: Recommends almond butter with violets during Lent. Said to comfort the heart and brain and temper liver heat.
- 1690 – An English Herbal: Ascribes violet remedies for infections, jaundice, sore throats, and agues. Externally applied to reduce swelling and pain.
Violet Syrup (1608)
Source: A Closet for Ladies and Gentlevvomen
“Take your Violets, and pick the flowers, and weigh them, and then put them into a quart of water, and steepe them vpon hot embers, until such time as the flowers be turned white, and the water as blew as any violet. Then take to that quart of infusion four pound of clarified sugar, and boil it till it come to a syrup…”
Recipes Featuring Violets
- Harleian MS. 279 – .lxxxxj Vyolette – Violet Almond Pottage with rice flour, spices, fruits, and saffron, stirred with fresh violet flowers.
- Harleian MS. 279 – .Cxxv Vyolette – A custard-style dish made with almond milk, violet petals, and sugar or honey.
References & Resources
- Dodoens, R. (1554). A Nievve Herball
- Prepositas, N. (1588). A Compendious Treatise
- Culpeper, N. (1659). Culpeper’s School of Physick
- An English Herbal (1690)
- Of Marche Violets: Related Recipes and Links
⚠️ Reminder:
Always use organically grown or culinary-grade flowers. Never consume flowers from florists or treated ornamental plants.
Originally published 8/14/2020. Updated for expanded resources and culinary notes on 7/3/2025.
