WHITE 



WOOD ANEMONE. WIND-FLOWER. 



Anemone nemorosa. Crowfoot Family. 



Stem. Slender. Leaves. Divided into delicate leaflets. Flower. 

 Solitary ; white, pink, or purplish. Calyx. Of from four to seven petal- 

 like sepals. Corolla. None. Stamens and Pistils. Numerous. 



" Within the woods, 



Whose young and half transparent leaves scarce cast 

 A shade, gay circles of anemones 

 Danced on their stalks ; " 



writes Bryant, bringing vividly before us the feathery foliage of 

 the spring woods, and the tremulous beauty of the slender- 

 stemmed anemones. Whittier, too, tells how these 



" wind-flowers sway 

 Against the throbbing heart of May." 



And in the writings of the ancients as well we could find many 

 allusions to the same flower, were we justified in believing that 

 the blossom christened the "wind-shaken," by some poet 

 flower-lover of early Greece, was identical with our modern 

 anemone. 



Pliny tells us that the anemone of the classics was so entitled 

 because it opened at the wind's bidding. The Greek tradition 

 claims that it sprang from the passionate tears shed by Venus 

 over the body of the slain Adonis. At one time it was believed 

 that the wind which had passed over a field of anemones was 

 poisoned, and that disease followed in its wake. Perhaps be- 

 cause of this superstition the flower was adopted as the emblem of 

 illness by the Persians. Surely our delicate blossom is far re- 

 moved from any suggestion of disease or unwholesomeness, seem- 

 ing instead to hold the very essence of spring and purity in its 

 quivering cup. 



