Identify purple flowers?

Question

Each plant is less than an inch tall. Each leaf and each flower is less than a quarter inch in diameter. The flowers are bright light purple. They grow by the millions among ordinary grass. If you pluck one, you don't get much of a stem, because there are leaves all up and down the stem. There are about twice as many leaves as flowers, but the overall impression is of light purple blue flowers rather than green leaves, because the flowers stand out more. These flowers grow very close together, in big patches, giving an impression of light purple fabric.

They grow a few miles south of the Ohio river in west central Kentucky.

I haven't been in this area before, so I don't know how common these flowers are. I might be surrounded by a million people who know the name of these flowers, and I might be the only one who doesn't.

The petals have small dark purple markings, covering only a small fraction of the face of the petal, so the overall color is still light purple.

The petals don't quite match the picture of the bluet. Each petal seems to be split, sort of. As if it were a pair of petals. Each half of the pair seems wider or rounder at the tip than the bluet, relative to the length of the petal. The color is bright and deep. When I said the color was light, I meant lighter than dark purple. But it's deeper and brighter than the bluet color. They're very beautiful, but they seem to grow like weeds. In some areas of the yard, they seem to grow alone, with no grass, implying that they grow more easily than grass does. It's hard to see the exact details because they're small. Someone might have planted them, for all I know. That might explain why they grow in some places with no grass. Maybe the grass was removed and these were planted in its place. But they're also among the grass. The leaves are serrated, and shaped like a picture of an artichoke.

I'm actually a little confused by the colors. Looking again at the bluet, it's actually very close. But looking at the patch of bluets, that looks more light blue, and less purple. The mystery flowers are distinctively purplish even when you look at a whole patch of them at once. But it's maybe slightly on the blue side of purple.

Answer 1

Dilbert, It sounds a lot like the wild violet. I live in the area you mentioned and they are very common here. I guess that they are pretty much a weed, but more like wild flowers to me. Some people try pretty hard to get rid of them, but I don't see that they cause much problem.
Wild violet is a winter perennial, growing 2 - 5 inches tall. It can have a tap root or a fibrous root system, and also can produce rooting stolons and rhizomes. The leaves can vary but usually are heart shaped, on long petioles with scalloped to shallow rounded margins.
The flowers of wild violet range from white to blue to purple and appear from March to June. Wild violet flowers are pansy-like with three lower petals and two lateral petals on long single flower stalks.
Wild violets are found throughout the United States, except for the Rocky Mountains. Wild violets are more common where they are sold as ornamental ground covers.
This link has a picture, but I haven't found a good one. They come in different colors, but the ones we have are a darker purple or violet.

Answer 2

I trust Danny's Gal, that is not an anemone. The flower seems comparable, however the leaves are all incorrect. Take a particular look, they provide the impact of being like super leaves like a daphne or some thing. Anemone leaves are mushy fern like leaves, & paler eco-friendly then those interior the image.I too have been turning out to be them for over 50 years Edit Meanolmaw, i think of you have it, i at present observed some merely like that, yet could not remember the call!

Answer 3

I think(?) from your description it may be a bluet. (sometimes called quaker ladies)
Here is a link to check out the flower I think it is:
(close up) http://www.hiltonpond.org/images/Bluets01.jpg

and here's a patch of them: http://trailquest.net/bluets.JPG

Are these what you mean?