Originally a cultivated Asian import, but now as much a part of the American landscape as the dandelion, this weedy vine covers hillsides and infiltrates hedges throughout the city. It is remarkable for bearing two different colors of flower on the same stem. (We often read that the white flowers age to buff, but this seems not to be true: rather, the individual flowers are one color or the other even in bud.) Children know that a drop of pure, sweet nectar may be carefully extracted from the base of the flower.
