by illustrator » June 15th, 2018, 11:01 pm
because this is an original trait of the wild violets. It is adaptive in nature: by losing the corolla after the fertile period of the flower, the plant ensures that the old corolla can't destroy the developing seedpod. In the African forest, humidity is so high that a stick-tight flower would eventually rot while the seedpod is still growing. I like "functional" plants and when I was small, I could not find any African violet which was not a stick-tight. For many years, I wondered how the "dropping" would look. I also like diversity: when everyone wants to improve violets by selecting only stick-tights, that is already a reason for me to to grow droppers ...
Paul Veenvliet