THE CROWFOOT FAMILY. 179 



A. Virginiana, thinible-weed, or tall anemone, grows from two or three 

 feet high and upholds on a long, stiff Hower stalk a delicate, greenish white 

 flower. Often the plant is branched at the place of the remote involucre, or 

 stem leaves. Its curious fruit, a head of achenes, is in outline strongly 

 suggestive of a lady's thimble. Through wooded paths and by mountain 

 streams it looms up straight and high, and in the Alleghanies thrives at an 

 elevation of considerable height. 



HEART UVER=LEAF. SHARP=LOBED LIVER=LEAF. 



Hepdtica acuta. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Crozv/oot. WJtite or purplish. Faintly fragrant. Georgia nor tliivani, Dccevtber-M ay. 



Floivers : solitary and terminating fuzzy scapes from four to nine inches high. 

 Involucre: with three oval, hairy, sepal-like leaves wiiich at their apices are 

 pointed. Calyx: of six or more oblong, thin, petal-like se|)als. Petals: none. 

 Sta77ieiis and pistils : numerous. Leaves: from the base with long villous petioles ; 

 reniform, w'ith three acute lobes; entire; often ciliate on the edges and slightly 

 touched with purple. 



Early, very early in the springtime when there is a note of barrenness in the 

 woods, these pretty little wildlings send up profusely their fragrant bloom. 

 They are next of kin to the wood anemone and like it have a quaint although 

 hardly a fragile, personality. This species traverses the wooded slopes of 

 the Alleghanies and is very similar to Hepatica Hepatica, but it is not quite 

 as beautiful. It can be distinguished by its pointed leaf-lobes. Among 

 dead leaves and undergrowth of the preceding year it forms dense patches 

 with its own rusty-looking leaves which have remained over the winter to 

 act, perhaps, as a protection to the young, adventurous buds. Not until 

 later are the new leaves sent forth. Although necessarily the hepaticas 

 must lose some of their charm when taken away from their woodland set- 

 ting, they are still excellent in cultivation, growing readily and showing at 

 all seasons an attractive foliage. 



H. Hepdtica, liver-leaf, or noble liverwort is our best known species and 

 the one which Mr. Hamilton Gibson regarded as our earliest spring bloomer. 

 Its fragrant flowers are blue, pink, white or purple and the lobes of its leaves 

 are rounded. Sometimes even under the snow its buds, well wrapped up in 

 a dense fuzz, await the first gleam of sunshine to coax them into throwing 

 open their petals. In the Tennessee mountains where the plant is abundant, 

 its leaves are collected after the bloom has faded, they being of medicinal 

 value. 



RUE= ANEMONE. 

 SyndcsDioii tJialictro]dcs. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Crowfoot. White or pink. Scentless. Gulf region north^oard. .\Iarcli-func. 



Flowers ; perfect ; growing on slender pedicels in terminal umbels and having 



