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CAMPANULACEAE (BLUEBELL FAMILY) 
VENUS’S LOOKING-GLASS 
Speculdria perfoliata, A. DC. 
(Legouzia perfoliata, 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 
Looking- 
glass (Spe- 
cularia per- 
foltata). 
Xt 
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 ér narrowly top-shaped, three-celled, 
splitting below the middle. Seed brown, lens-shaped, 
often an impurity of clover and grass seed. (Fig. 285.) 
Means of control 
Enrich the ground by liming, manuring, and fur- 
nishing it with humus, which will enable it to retain 
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. 
