ANEMONE NEMOROSA. 



WIND-FLOWER, OR WOOD-ANEMONE. 



NATURAL ORDER, RANUNCULACE^. 



Anemone nemorosa, Linnaeus. — Low, smoothish ; stem perfectly simple, from a filiform 

 root-stock, slender, leafless, except the involucre of three long-petioled, trifoliolate 

 leaves, their leaflets wedge-shaped or oblong, and toothed or cut, or the lateral ones two- 

 parted ; a similar radical leaf in sterile plants solitary from the root-stock ; peduncle 

 not longer than the involucre; sepals 4 to 7, oval, white, sometimes tinged with purple 

 outside; carpels only 15 to 20, oblong, with a hooked beak. (Gray's Jlfanuai 0/ the 

 Botany of the Northern United States. See also Chapman's Flora of the Southern United 

 States ; Wood's Class-Booh ; Botany of the Geological Survey of California ; etc.) 



HE classical pronunciation of the generic name of this 

 I plant is An-e-mo^-ne, but the accepted pronunciation is 

 An-cni'-on-e. The Latins tell us that Adonis, the beautiful son 

 of the King of Cyprus, and the "minion of Venus," was turned 

 into a sort of poppy called Anemone. Others tell us that 

 Anemone was a nymph beloved by Zephyr, and was therefore 

 banished by the jealous Flora from her court, and changed into 

 a cold spring flower. Boreas, however, wooed her, but, still true 

 to Zephyr, who in this strait abandoned her, she would listen to 

 nothing he had to say. Finding that she slighted his attentions, 

 he maliciously continued them until she was half inclined to listen, 

 when, after she had slightly opened her petals, he blew a cold blast 

 and caused the tender flower to fade away. There is a popular 

 impression in Europe that the species we now introduce opens 

 only when the wind blows, and it therefore bears the popular 

 name of " Wind-Flower," and this associates the flower very well 

 with the ancient story. The name Anemone, as applied to the 

 whole genus, was given to it, as we are told by Sir William 

 Hooker, from the Greek name for wind, and because many 



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