408 



CAMPANULACEAE (BLUEBELL FAMILY) 



VENUS'S LOOKING-GLASS 



Speculdria perfolidta, A. DC. 

 (Legouzia perfolidta, Britton) 



Other English name: Clasping Bell-flower. 



Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom: May to August. 



Seed-time: June to September. 



Range: Ontario to British Columbia, southward to Florida and 



Mexico. 

 Habitat : Sterile open ground ; thin meadows, upland pastures,. 



Grazing cattle do not like the taste of this plant, and it is usually 

 left to reproduce itself, even where good forage is scarce as it is 

 likely to be on ground preferred by the weed. 



Stem six to eighteen inches long, slender, weak 

 and usually prostrate, with rough-hairy angles or 

 sometimes smooth, simple or branching near the base, 

 very leafy. Leaves alternate, rounded or broadly 

 ovate, clasping the stem by a heart-shaped base, the 

 edges rather finely toothed. Flowers sessile in the 

 axils, solitary or sometimes in twos or threes ; the 

 lower and earlier ones are rudimentary, without 

 corolla, and these never open but are self-fertilized in 

 the bud, producing much seed which is often ripened 

 and sown before the upper flowers expand their five- 

 lobed, violet-blue corollas, which are also fertile ; 

 stamens five with thin, flattened filaments, shorter 

 than the anthers ; style with three-lobed stigma. 

 Capsule oblong or narrowly top-shaped, three-celled, 

 splitting below the middle. Seed brown, lens-shaped, 

 often an impurity of clover and grass seed. (Fig. 285.) 



-FIG.iJSO. ,, / , 7 



Venus's Means oj control 



glass (Se- Enrich the ground by liming, manuring, and fur- 

 culariaper- nishing it with humus, which will enable it to retain 

 foliata). moisture and support the growth of better plants. 

 Hand-pulling of small and newly infested areas is a 

 paying operation but the work must be done before the develop- 

 ment of the inconspicuous early flowers. 



