Viola chamissoniana subsp. chamissoniana is a branched shrub with stems that can root along the lower part when decumbent. The stems are either glabrous or pubescent. The leaves are simple and alternate, usually clustered toward the upper part of the branch. The blades are deltate-ovate to deltate-cordate or rarely cordate, measuring 2–4 cm long and 2.5–9 cm wide. The leaf apex is long-acuminate or acuminate, and the base is rounded to broadly cuneate. The leaf surfaces can be glabrous or pubescent on the lower surface, with dentate-serrate margins. The petioles are 0.6–1 cm long, and the stipules are asymmetrically broadly deltate or deltate, 5–16 mm long, and 2–7 mm wide, with remotely glandular-toothed and somewhat irregularly lacerate margins near the apex, rarely further down along the margins. The flowers are 1–2 per peduncle, axillary on stems and lateral branches, with peduncles 8–60 mm long and pedicels 20–70 mm long. The flowers are bisexual (perfect) and apparently all chasmogamous. The calyx consists of 5 subequal, linear-lanceolate sepals that are glabrous or pubescent, imbricate, with ± ciliate margins. The upper sepal is about 5–8 mm long, the lateral ones are 5.5–9 mm long, and the lower ones are 5–8 mm long. The corolla is zygomorphic (bilaterally symmetric) and consists of 5 distinct, unequal petals, with the lateral ones smaller than the upper pair. The petals are white, tinged with purple, especially toward the base, with the lower surface usually tinged with darker purple. The petals are obliquely spatulate and ± ciliate toward the base, with the upper petals being 10–21 mm long, the lateral ones 10.5–23 mm long, and the lower one 11.3–22.5 mm long, saccate at the base. There are five stamens, 4.2–4.5 mm long, with the connective of the lower stamens prolonged into a nose-shaped or straight, broadly rectangular-cuneate structure about 1–2.5 mm long. The staminal filaments are coherent around the ovary, and the anther connective of the lower stamens is prolonged into an appendage, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. The ovary is superior, 3-carpellate, and 1-celled, with parietal placentation and numerous anatropous ovules per placenta. There is one style. The fruit is a capsule with loculicidal dehiscence, measuring 12–17 mm long and elastically dehiscent by rigid keels and thin valve walls. The seeds are numerous, dark brown to nearly black, obovoid, and 1.8–2.3 mm long. They have a somewhat leathery, dull seed coat and a rounded apex and contain fleshy, oily endosperm. It is found in mesic to wet forests between 330-1,890 meters.