Another attractive violet, both for its cleft leaves and bright flowers, the cut-leaf violet is a perennial with smooth herbage and flowering stems arising from 5-15 cm tall. The leaf blades are sometimes a blue-green, often with purple on their lower surfaces. The leaf blades are deeply cleft into 3 main lobes, each of which is further cleft into linear segments. The leaf blade is generally 2-5 cm long.

The flowers are held above the leaves, with the forward faces of the 5 petals bright yellow, with the lower 3 petals showing purple penciling, and the backs of the upper two petals appearing brownish.

Cut-leaf violet may be found in the partial shade of oaks or ponderosa pines.

Cut-leaf violet may be found on the east side of the Cascades from near Cle Elum, WA south to the Columbia River Gorge, and south sporadically to Baja California.