Wild violets are a North American native perennial that can quickly colonize in lawns and garden beds to become a weedy nuisance. Plants grow four to eight inches tall and feature small, five-petaled, purple-blue flowers that hang atop wiry, leafless stems from April into June. Its leaves are green, heart-shaped, and somewhat glossy. The spring flowers produce some seeds. A second set of closed, self-pollinating flowers develop in summer, forming seed capsules that eject seeds up to eight to nine feet away. Once new plants are established, violets colonize via a root system of short, thick, horizontal rhizomes and by seeds.