Pansy (pasinting)

My latest acrylic painting, the colourful and popular pansy

The garden pansy (Viola × wittrockiana) is a type of polychromatic large-flowered hybrid plant cultivated as a garden flower. It is derived by hybridization from several species in the section Melanium ("the pansies") of the genus Viola, particularly V. tricolor, a wildflower of Europe and western Asiaknown as heartsease. It is sometimes known as V. tricolor var. hortensis, but this scientific name is suspect. While V. tricolorvar. hortensis Groenland & Rümpler is a synonym of Viola × wittrockiana, V. tricolorvar. hortensis DC. refers to a horticultural variety of wild pansy (V. tricolor without interspecific hybridization) that had been illustrated in Flora Danica in 1777  before the existence of Viola × wittrockiana.