Venus' Looking Glass

I was out this morning with the weed-whacker, taking out the Johnson grass and other bits that were trying to absorb the brick pathway back into the soil while trying not to take out the little Venus' Looking Glass seedlings that were starting to peek out from between the bricks.

Venus' Looking Glass, or Triodanis perfoliata, is one of my favourite wildflowers. I've been quietly encouraging the little darlings for several years, now, and get a decent clump every spring. It's not as showy as some of our other wildflowers. No one will ever stop the car on the highway to bundle the kids out to have their picture taken in a field of them -- the Babies in the Bluebonnets photo is an annual ritual here in Texas. No one will ever come around a bend and be dazzled by a sea of them, as I was last Fall by the Maximillian sunflowers. But I think they are easily one of the prettiest of the annual wildflowers, and the one that always means Spring to me.

Dave's Garden lists the mature height of the Venus' Looking Glass as 18" - 24", but I've never really seen them larger than about 10". According to the USDA website, their range extends throughout the continental US, except for Nevada and some of the northern central states. They produce pretty little six-petaled flowers in a rich shade of purple or blue-violet that's not often seen in wild flowers. My neice, Theresa and I used to use their flowers, along with grass leaves and blue Day-flowers, as an improvised paint, mashing them onto paper to create smears of color. They also press well. There are probably still a few between the leaves of my mother's 1952 Encyclopedia Americana.