THE ANEMONE. 7 



Despite the poetry attaching- to the plant, it shares fully 

 in the acrid and bitter nature of almost all the plants in 

 the order Ranunculacese, an order containing the deadly 

 wolf's-bane or monk's-hood, the hellebore, and the fiery 

 and blistering- buttercups; and we should certainly our- 

 selves hesitate to resort to the remedy of chewing- its 

 root. The specific name of the anemone is nemorosa. 

 The student who translated Jiors cle combat as war-horse, 

 would probably tell us that this means that the plant 

 has nothing of the rose about it; but other authorities, 

 and those too of more weight, point us to the Latin word 

 for woody. The Anemone nemorosa, though much the 

 commonest of all our English species, is sometimes more 

 definitely specified for the sake of distinction as the wood- 

 anemone, while in Wales it is the " frithogen y goedwig," 

 and in Ireland the " nead coilleah." Some few of the old 

 herbalists call the anemone the wood-crowfoot, because 

 its leaves resemble in shape those of some species of 

 crowfoot. The name is, however, an unfortunate one, as 

 amongst the crowfoot or buttercup family there is one, 

 the Ranunculus auricomus, a plant we have already 

 figured, and a dweller in the woods and copses, that 

 has a much greater right and prior claim to the name. 

 The anemone, if we may believe the stories of the 

 old Greek poets, had a most romantic origin, being 

 fabled to have sprung from the tears shed by Venus over 

 the dead Adonis : 



" Alas the Paphian ! fair Adonis slain ! 

 Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain. 

 But gentle flowers are born, and bloom around, 

 From every drop that falls upon the ground : 

 Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose; 

 And where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows." 



