THE PLUMOSE ANEMONE. 15 



Muller has called dianthus the most beautiful of all the 

 Anemones, — " Actiniaram pulcherrima /" and his verdict 

 is surely correct, so far as it refers to European species. 

 "When we see a full-grown specimen of some of the more 

 delicately coloured varieties, — the pale orange, the flesh- 

 coloured, or the clear white, — rising erect from its broad 

 base like the stem of a massive tree, crowned with its 

 expansive disk of myriad tentacles, we cannot but consider 

 it a most noble, as well as a most lovely object. It is only 

 in expansion that it is beautiful. The button will some- 

 times shrink down to an abject flatness, scarcely more 

 than an eighth of an inch in height in the centre, the cir- 

 cumference spread out on every side to cover an irregularly 

 outlined area of some five or six inches in diameter, but 

 no thicker than a card. In this condition it is almost a 

 repulsive object, but, perhaps in a quarter of an hour, you 

 look at it again, and the change seems magical. The 

 animal has risen, and swollen, and distended its body 

 with clear water, till the tissues appear plump, and almost 

 transparent ; it now forms a noble massive column, some 

 five inches high, and three thick, from which the delicate 

 frilled disk expands, and arches over on every side, like 

 the foliated crown of a palm tree. Then again, on some 

 cause of alarm, real or supposed, it will suddenly draw 

 in its beautiful array of frills, contract around them its 

 parapet, and assume a distended bladder-like figure, with 

 the clustering tentacles just protruding from the slightly 

 open aperture. 



It is under the veil of night that the Anemones in 

 general expand most readily and fully. While the glare 

 of day is upon them, they are often chary of displaying 

 their blossomed beauties ; but an hour of darkness will 

 often suffice to overcome the reluctance of the coyest. 

 The species before us is not particularly shy ; it may often 



