RANUNCULACEiE 



25 



Another name by which it is known in England 

 is the Virgin's Bower. 



belladonna, one of the principal medicines used 

 by homceopathists. 



Pasque Flower — Anemone Pulsatilla 

 (Plate II) 



This is a spring flower, met with occasionally in 

 dry pastures, in chalk or limestone districts, in 

 several parts of England, but not commonly. The 

 flowers grow up before the leaves expand, the 

 stalk lengthening till it is 5 or 6 inches high. The 

 leaves, when they expand, are bifid or trifid, and 

 deeply cleft at the extremities of the leaflets. 

 The outside of the calyx (of 6 sepals), the stalks, 

 etc., are very silky ; the corolla is absent. In 

 the ripe fruit the carpels are separate, round, 

 and surrounded by long tufts of white hairs 

 or awns. 



The fresh juice of the plant has an irritant effect 

 on the skin. Preparations from the plant are 

 sometimes employed in cutaneous diseases, and 

 also in whooping cough. It is, like aconite and 



Wood Anemone — Anemone nemorosa 



This is a much commoner flower in Britain than 

 the last. It is a smaller and much more slender 

 plant, with the leaves less deeply cleft, and a white 

 flower of 6 sepals, often more or less tinged with 

 delicate pink on the outer sides. The carpels are 

 pointed, but destitute of an awn. It is very 

 common on hedge-banks, open places in woods, 

 and similar localities in spring. 



On this plant feeds the larva of Adda Degeerella, 

 one of the most beautiful of the smaller moths, 

 which appears in June, and sports in the sun. The 

 forewings are of a long oval, three-quarters of an 

 inch in expanse, and are varied with yellow and 

 violet-brown ; beyond the middle is a transverse 

 yellow band ; the hindwings are brown, and are 

 fringed with long hairs. But what renders this 

 pretty moth and its immediate allies remarkable 

 is the extraordinary length of the slender antennae, 



