Viola hederacea, the Australian violet, is a species of flowering plant in the family Violaceae, native to Australia.

Well-developed leaves of Viola hederacea are also distinctive – semicircular in outline, about as broad as long, and usually rather dark green above and paler beneath.

This small herbaceous perennial is common and widespread in Victoria and Tasmania, along the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales north at least to the Barrington Tops area, in the far south-east of South Australia, and in a small area of the Adelaide Hills between Belair and Mount Lofty.

It is a less spectacular plant than the cultivated species Viola banksii, with a more open, less robust habit and less striking flowers.

Most ornamental cultivars labelled as Viola hederacea are actually Viola banksii, which was until recently included within V. hederacea[2] but differs in the more richly coloured flowers with an almost circular anterior petal and almost circular leaves with a deep sinus (V. hederacea has paler flowers with an obovate anterior petal and more or less reniform leaves with a broad sinus).