White and Greenish 



case visitors seeking pollen fail to bring any from other anemones — 

 all these features teach that every plant is what it is for excellent 

 reasons of its own ; that it is a sentient being, not to be admired 

 for superficial beauty merely, but also for those same traits which 

 operate in the human race, making it the most interesting of studies. 



Note the clusters of tuberous dahlia-like roots, the whorl of 

 thin three-lobed rounded leaflets on long, fine petioles imme- 

 diately below the smaller pure white or pinkish flowers usually 

 growing in loose clusters, to distinguish the more common Rue- j^ (^ 

 Anemone {Syndesmoii thalictroides)—Thalictrumauemonoidesoi 

 Gray — from its cousin the solitary flowered wood or true anemone. 

 Generally there are three blossoms of the rue-anemone to a clus- 

 ter, the central one opening first, the side ones only after it has 

 developed its stamens and pistils to prolong the season of bloom 

 and encourage cross-pollination by insects, in the eastern half 

 of the United States, and less abundantly in Canada, these are 

 among the most "'niiliar spring wild flowers. Pick them and 

 they soon wilt misei bly ; lift the plants early, with a good ball 

 of soil about the roots, and they will unfold their fragile blossoms 

 indoors, bringing with them something of the unspeakable charm 

 of their native woods and hillsides just waking into life. 



The Tall or Summer Anemone {A. l^irginiana), called also 

 Thimble-weed from its oblong, thimble-like fruit-head, bears 

 solitary, inconspicuous greenish or white flowers, often over an 

 inch across, and generally with five rounded sepals, on erect, 

 long stalks from June to August. Contrasted with the dainty 

 tremulous little spring anemones, it is a rather coarse, stiff, hairy 

 plant two or three feet tall. Its preference is for woodlands, 

 whereas another summer bloomer, the Long-fruited Anemone 

 {A. cyUndricd), a smaller, silky-hairy plant often confused with 

 it, chooses open places, fields, and roadsides. The leaves of the 

 thimble-weed, which are set in a whorl high up on the stem, 

 and also spring from the root, after the true anemone f^ishion, are 

 long petioled, three-parted, the divisions variously cut, lobed, 

 and saw-edged. The flower-stalks which spring from this whorl 

 continue to rise throughout the summer. The first, or middle of 

 these peduncles, lacks leaves ; later ones bear two leaves in the 

 middle, from which more flower-stalks arise, and so on. 



Virgin's Bower; Virginia Clematis; Traveller's 

 Joy; Old Man's Beard 



{Clematis Virginiana) Crowfoot family 



Flowers — White and greenish, about i in. across or less, in loose 

 clusters from the axils. Calyx of 4 or 5 petal-like sepals ; no 



181 



