This tiny, rather nondescript purple flower carries a grand name indeed — Clasping Venus’s Looking Glass (Triodanis perfoliata). It is an annual herb, native to most of the eastern North America. I recently glimpsed a couple of isolated individuals, each bearing aloft a single five-petaled flower about half an inch across, near the Piney Woods Church Road intersection with Rico Road. They offer practically the only patch of purple along the road right now, surrounded by a sea of green leaves. Scotts Lawn Service offers to “fight” this plant with “systemic weed control,” “killing it completely, root and all.” Am I the only one that is baffled by this assertion? There are so many battles we need to engage in throughout our lives — fighting against injustice, poverty, industrial air pollution — but is this really one of them?
