To be honest Blast I am not 100% sure that is what they are. It will be another month or two before I can verify. My Grandpa had these growing in his lawn (au naturale) as well. Because they grow in the yard and are mowed they remain a very-short-and-close-to-the-ground type of plant. They grow in large clusters and have a flower of exactly the same color. The clustering and the flower leads me to believe they are wild violets.

EDIT:
The reason I remember these plants, other than my Grandpa pointing them out to me, is because of the story that went with them. My Grandpa grew up in very hard times. The family nearly starved to death at times. For that reason my Grandpa was an avid gardener. Year after year, he planted large gardens with row after row of corns, beans, tomatos, cabbages, turnips, and so on. My Grandpa would always point out those plants with the purple flowers on them to me and tell me about those hard times growing up and how they always looked forward to eating the greens from those plants. Apparently they were among the first edible wild plants to come up in the spring. Sorry for rambling. My Grandpa died last summer and just experiencing some fond and sad memories.


Edited by Mark_Frantom (01/26/10 06:23 PM)
_________________________
Uh ... does anyone have a match?