ANEMONE VIRGINIANA. 



TALL ANEMONE.— THIMBLE-WEED. 



NATURAL ORDER, RANUNCULACE.E. 



Anemone Virginiana, L. — Hairy; principal involucre three-leaved, the leaves long-pelioled, 

 three-parted; their divisions ovate-lanceolate, pointed, cut-serrate, the lateral two-parted, 

 the middle three-cleft; peduncles elongated, the earliest naked, the others with a two- 

 leaved involucel at the middle; sepals five, acute, greenish, in one variety white and 

 obtuse; head of i'ruit oval or oblong. (Gray's ]\Iaminl of the Botany cf the A^orthein 

 United Stales. See also Chapman's Flora of the Southeni United States, and Wood's 

 Class- Book of Botany.) 



T is scarcely possible to have an Ancinonc brought to our 

 notice, but the many poetical and other pleasant asso- 

 ciations which have been connected with it through so many 

 ages crowd themselves on our attention. A large volume might 

 be devoted wholly to the polite history of the Anemone. All we 

 can do in a few pages like ours is to refer to some of the most 

 prominent circumstances that have been connected with the 

 family. Few would believe that any of the pretty species which 

 form the genus, and which have had so many pleasant stories 

 founded on their innocent-looking little flowers, ever were in ill- 

 favor with mankind ; and yet the ancient inhabitants of Eastern 

 Europe believed that the wind was poisoned by passing over a 

 field of Anemones, and that severe maladies followed those who 

 had to breathe in this poisoned atmosphere; and this belief 

 exists among the common people of those lands even down to 

 our time. F.or this reason the Persians have taken an Anemone 

 to be the emblem of sickness, yet few of those who write of the 

 " language of flowers " know how the association originated. 

 The Romans appear to have had some such an idea, but believed 



'93) 



