The flower you plant in fall, and why it has a face
A university gardening guide tells you to plant the pansy in the fall, for flowers in winter and early spring — and the flower’s name, its face and its wild relative each have a story.
Start with the calendar, because the pansy runs it backwards. North Carolina State University’s Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox calls the pansy “one of the most popular bedding plants for cooler weather,” and gives gardeners one line of timing: “Plant in the fall for winter and early spring blooms.” A bedding plant is one grown to be planted out in a garden bed. The pansy goes in as the weather cools down, blooms through the cold months and into spring, and then, the toolbox says, “Pansy will eventually succumb to summer heat and should then be removed from the garden.” Succumb means give in.
Basis: North Carolina State University Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, “Viola x wittrockiana (Lady’s Delight, Pansy),” Description. Quotations unchanged.
Now look at one flower up close. The toolbox’s quick identification hints describe it as “five overlapping petals with a center eyespot or face-like markings.” Five petals, overlapping like the shingles on a roof, and in the middle a dark patch that many people see as a little face — two eyes and a mouth, or a whiskery nose. The same page says the flowers are “1 to 2 inches across in many colors.” Notice the toolbox says eyespot or face-like markings: they are markings on the petals, and whether they look like a face is up to whoever is looking.
Basis: North Carolina State University Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, “Viola x wittrockiana (Lady’s Delight, Pansy),” Quick ID Hints. Quotations unchanged.
The garden pansy has a wild relative that still grows on its own. The toolbox’s page on Viola tricolor, the wild pansy, says it “is the parent plant of modern pansy hybrids and was introduced to North America from Europe.” A hybrid is a plant bred by crossing two or more different kinds. The wild one is smaller — the page describes “Pansy-like (but smaller) flowers” — and its name is a clue to its look: “The epithet is Latin for ‘three-colored’ and references the flower colors,” which the page lists as “violet, white and gold.” The garden pansy itself, the other page says, is “in the violet family (Violaceae) and native to Europe and Asia.” So the pansy in a pot at the garden centre belongs to the same plant family as the violets.
Basis: North Carolina State University Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, “Viola tricolor” (Description and Quick ID Hints) and “Viola x wittrockiana (Lady’s Delight, Pansy)” (Description). Quotations unchanged.
The name is a thinking word. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces “pansy” back through English to Old French, where pensee was a name for the pansy and meant, literally, “thought, remembrance,” from the French verb penser, “to think.” The dictionary also gives the reason: “So called because it was regarded as a symbol of thought or remembrance.” It does not say who first gave the flower that name — and neither does this note.
Who says so: Online Etymology Dictionary, “pansy” (opens in a new tab)
Why does Maryland come first when you count USDA’s pansy-and-viola line in pots, when Texas comes first counting the money and North Carolina comes first counting flats? None of the sources here says, so what follows is possibilities, not findings. One is simply packing: growers in different places may sell the same flower in different containers, depending on who buys it and how they plant it, so a state can be first in one container and nowhere near first in another. Another is that a count of pots, a count of flats and a count of dollars simply measure different things, so they need not agree. We have not found a source that explains Maryland’s pots, so the question stays open.
※ A hypothesis is an idea that isn't proven yet.
Note: a “theory”, “folklore” or “outlook” is not settled fact. Always check who is saying it.
📊 Sources for the rankings mentioned in this note (links to the original data and retrieval dates) are on each quiz page below.