British IVild Flowers and Trees 217 



often struck with its singular charm about noon on 

 bright days. There is reason to beHeve that there 

 is both in England and Ireland a large and handsome 

 form of the wood Anemone — distinct from the common 

 white of our woods and shaws in spring, and that 

 my blue Anemone is a variety of this. It is not 

 the same as the blue form wild in parts of North 

 Wales and elsewhere in Britain, this being more 

 fragile looking and not so light a blue. 



As for the Apennine blue Anemone it is one of the 

 loveliest of spring flowers, both in the borders and 

 scattered here and there in woods and shrubberies 

 and grass. The flowers are freely produced, and of 

 the loveliest blue. It is not a true but a naturalized 

 native flower, so to speak, its home being the hills 

 of South Europe, having escaped out of gardens 

 into our land. The Pasque Anemone, or Pasque- 

 flower, is a beautiful native plant bearing large flowers 

 of a lovely violet purple, silky outside. It grows on 

 limestone pastures, and occurs in several districts in 

 England, though it is wanting in Scotland and Ireland. 

 The Pasque-flower is one of those that are more 

 beautiful in a wild than in a cultivated state, for 

 though it grows freely in light and chalky soils in 

 gardens, it has not half the beauty it shows in spring 

 on the Downs. I never saw any plant more charming 

 than this in the woods and hills and even on walls in 

 Normandy in spring. Another kind, A. ranunculoides 

 (yellow), is a doubtful native found in one or two 



