White and Greenish 



number. Stem: Slender, 4 to 9 in. high, from horizontal 

 elongated rootstock. Leaves: On slender petioles, in a whorl 

 of 3 to 5 below the flower, each leaf divided into 3 to 5 vari- 

 ously cut and lobed parts ; also a late-appearing leaf from 



/ the base. 



I^eferred Habitat— "WoodXands, hillsides, light soil, partial shade. 



Flowering Season — April — June. 



Distribution — Canada and United States, south to Georgia, west to 

 Rocky Mountains. 



According to one poetical Greek tradition, Anemos, the wind, 

 employs these exquisitely delicate little star-like namesakes as 

 heralds of his coming in early spring, while woods and hillsides 

 still lack foliage to break his gust's rude force. Pliny declared that 

 only the wind could open anemones 1 Another legend utilized by 

 countless poets pictures Venus wandering through the forests 

 grief-stricken over the death of her youthful lover. 



" Alas, the Paphian ! fair Adonis slain ! 

 Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain ; 

 But gentle flowers are bom and bloom around 

 From every drop that falls upon the ground : 

 Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose ; 

 And where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows." 



Indeed, in reading the poets ancient and modern for references 

 to this favorite blossom, one realizes as never before the signifi- 

 cance of an anthology, literally a flower gathering. 



But it is chiefly the European anemone that is extolled by the 

 poets. Nevertheless our more slender, fragile, paler-leaved, and 

 smaller-flowered species, known, strange to say, by the same sci- 

 entific name, possesses the greater charm. Doctors, with more 

 prosaic eyes than the poets, find acrid and dangerous juices in the 

 anemone and its kin. Certain European peasants will run past a 

 colony of these pure innocent blossoms in the belief that the very 

 air is tainted by them. Yet the Romans ceremonially picked the 

 first anemone of the year, with an incantation supposed to guard 

 them against fever. The identical plant that blooms in our woods, 

 which may be found also in Asia, is planted on graves by the 

 Chinese, who call it the " death flower." 



To leave legend and folk lore, the practical scientist sees in 

 the anemone, trembling and bending before the wind, a perfect 

 adaptation to its environment. Anchored in the light soil by a 

 horizontal rootstock ; furnished with a stem so slender and pliable 

 no blast can break it ; its pretty leaves whorled where tney form a 

 background to set off the fragile beauty of the solitary flower above 

 them ; a corolla economically dispensed with, since the white 

 sepals are made to do the advertising for insects ; the slightly 

 nodding attitude of the blossom in cloudy weather, that the stigmas 

 may be in the line of the fall of pollen jarred out by the wind ia 



180 



