VENUS'S LOOKING-GLASS 



Specularia perfoliata (L.) A. DC. 



May - June There comes a plant in late May and early June, an 



Sunny banks, inconspicuous plant with a short stem set vdth. clasp- 

 bottomlands ing, cupped leaves, A\hich grows in waste places and 

 dry woods. Not at all important-looking, no flower as 

 vet . . . but now as June arrives, the stem grows taller, elongates so 

 that the cupped, scalloped leaves are further apart than at first they were, 

 and there is a bud in eacli leaf-cup. In a few days the buds at the bottom 

 of the stem open in the bright June sunshine. The Venus's looking-glass 

 is in bloom. Those dozen or so oval leaves are the "mirrors", said the 

 ancients who knew it long ago in Greece, and the five-parted, bright 

 blue-purple flower set in each leaf is the bright face of Venus, the 

 channer, looking out. 



Venus's looking-glass is one of the plants whose whimsical name sets 

 it apart from ordinary flowers and makes it umisual and interesting. It 

 is not actually an unconnnon or rare plant ; wliore it grows, it is abun- 

 dant. But its charm lies not only in its delightful name and legend, but 

 in the shining, pure pur])](^ of tlie flower witli its white center and five 

 calyx lobes standing out like a star between tlie oval ])etals. Not since 

 violet time have there been such brilliantly bhie-i)urple blossoms in the 

 woods. 



Venus's looking-glass is an annual which seeds itself abundantly each 

 June when once again it lu'comcs ])art of the early summer landscape 

 of Illinois. 



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