CROWFOOT FAMILY 37 



on longer stems than in the open fields. Such a 

 scene, overhung with the drooping catkins of the 

 Birches, among whose branches the brilliant Red- 

 starts are flitting, may well typify the season of 

 spring. It is in just such situations that: 



" The lush marsh marigold shines like fire 

 In swamps and hollows gray." 



WOOD ANEMONE. The charm of the Wood 

 Anemone is perennial. In early spring its delicate 

 beauty adds a peculiar delight to the borders of 

 woods and untravelled roads. The modest blos- 

 soms white, save where touched to pink or pur- 

 ple by the kisses of the sun are lightly attached 

 to the slender, arched pedicels, to be swayed by 

 every breath of wind, or to droop more heavily 

 when a bee or fly alights to sip the nectar invisible 

 to human eyes. The leaves, in a whorl of three, 

 spring from the single smooth stem of the plant, 

 taking into their own stems much of the robust- 

 ness of the main stalk and leaving but a slender 

 pedicel for the support of the flower. Each leaf 

 is divided into three leaflets which in their turn 

 are deeply cut and lobed, permitting great free- 

 dom of motion in the wind. The rootstock is 

 perennial and rather slender: it is continually 

 spreading out and sending up new leaves to de- 

 velop later in blossom-bearing plants. As Pro- 

 fessor Bigelow wrote, early in the nineteenth 



