The "Fun" of Collecting Anemones, III -By wilhelm Mill 



THE "SUMMER WINDFLOWERS " WHICH MAKE THE HOT PERIOD SEEM COOLER, HARMONIZE 

 COLOR DISCORDS IN THE GARDEN, AND LEND ENCHANTMENT TO COMMONPLACE WOODLOTS 



_ New 



CI, York 



(Editors' Note. — The " Fun of Collecting" series is designed especially for beginners who would like to become experts. It explains the highest and lowest 

 ideals in collecting, and instead of airing botanical pedantry, tries to show the peculiar beauty of each species, its special use, and honestly reveals its limitations .) 



EVERYBODY knows the Japanese 

 anemone, which glorifies the autumn 

 with its chaste, white blossoms, but very 

 few people know its summer-blooming rep- 

 resentatives, of which the Canada anemone, 

 here pictured, is a fair sample. They will 

 not give as many flowers for the money, or 

 as large ones, but they perform three ser- 

 vices for which we ought to be thankful. 



First, they help to make the hot days 

 seem cooler, because they are, as a rule, 

 white flowers. A good way to make a 

 garden hot and stuffy in July and August 

 is to have long lines of scarlet sage, or 

 big masses of red and purple flowers. The 

 coolest colors are green and white. Of 

 green we usually get enough from foliage 

 and grass, but of white few gardens have 

 enough in summer. In our hot climate, 

 about one-half the summer flowers in a 

 garden ought to be white, or near- white. It 

 is a bad plan to look at the thermometer 

 when the mercury is in the nineties. So, 

 too, if you look at hot-colored flowers you 

 will feel hotter. But if you have white- 

 caps to look at, or white flowers, you 

 feel more comfortable. 



Secondly, these summer windflowers 

 help to give a garden that precious quality 

 — color harmony, because white flowers 

 are the only "peace-makers" we have, 

 except green foliage. Nine hundred and 

 ninety- nine gardens out of 1,000 are full 

 of color discords, because people do not 

 know any way of keeping them out with- 

 out too much fuss and pother. Eut 

 there is a very simple way — let about 

 half of your flowers be white. Use them in 

 every part of your garden, for everywhere 

 will bob up those wretched magenta flowers 

 which cause nine-tenths of the color dis- 

 cords. Who wants a simpler plan than this? 



Third, these summer windflowers have 

 a genius for giving mystery and charm to 

 commonplace situations — especially wood- 

 lands. This may shock my readers, for 

 woods always sound alluring and every- 

 body would like to own some. But, if 

 you go to buy any piece of woodland 

 near a large city you will find that prac- 

 tically all romance has fled from it. You 

 can look right through the woods because 

 the underbrush has been cut out and 

 therefore there is nothing to stimulate 

 the imagination. Cows have got in, 

 or the trees are so far apart that there is 

 grass every where and few flowers. Or, if 

 you are lucky enough to have a big show 

 of hepaticas, bloodroot, spring beauty 

 and the like, the chances are ten to one 

 that you will not have one good mass of 

 flowers after the trees leaf out until the 

 asters come in the fall — only dots of 

 bloom here and there. Therefore, the 



great problem with pleasure woods is how 

 to restore wild flowers and charm with- 

 out undue expense or any sign of human 

 effort. And in this we get considerable 

 help from summer windflowers which are 

 sturdy enough to hold their own against 

 deep shade and hungry roots and delicate 

 enough in their beauty to please a dryad. 

 For, there is nothing so exciting in summer 

 woods as to glimpse white flowers at a 

 distance. You cannot make out what 

 they are, and hasten eagerly to discover 

 this mystery in the heart of the woods. 



THE BEST FOR NATURALIZING 



The most familiar of the summer wind- 

 flowers is the Canada anemone {Anemone 

 Canadensis, but known to the older gen- 

 eration as A. Pennsylvania). It has pure 

 white flowers about two inches across, 

 blooms in June, and gives scattering 

 flowers until midsummer. This is the 

 favorite for garden or border cultivation. 

 My friend Mr. R. B. Whyte has thrown 

 it out of his garden, on the ground that it 

 seems a bit weedy th ere. But for naturaliz- 

 ing in woods or meadows it is the best of 

 all the species here described, and is one 

 of the few flowers that really seem to do 

 equally well in sun and shade. Imagine 

 a thousand of these starry white blossoms 

 swaying on their slender stems in those 



The cut-leaved anemone or red wlndflower {Ane- 

 mone multifida) 



354 



woods you know which are now too open. 

 You can buy ioo collected plants for only 

 $5, or get a dozen nursery-grown plants 

 for $1.50. Or, if you have no woods, 

 they are strong enough to serve as a 

 ground cover in your shrubbery. 



THE CHEAPEST WINDFLOWER 



The cheapest species, as a rule, is the 

 one most abundant in your locality. 

 Why not search for and collect the tall 

 anemone {A. Virginiana)? I am opposed 

 to the extermination of wild flowers, and 

 think it shameful to move them from the 

 deep woods to the open garden. But here 

 is a species that is in no danger of exter- 

 mination, has an enormous range, and 

 generally grows in good sized colonies. 

 If it is abundant in your neighborhood, 

 there is no harm in hiring a farmer to 

 bring a wagon load of it from his woods 

 to yours. It is the tallest of t>ie summer 

 windflowers, often growing three feet 

 high, while the Canada anemone attains 

 only twelve to eighteen inches. The 

 flowers are white or greenish and about 

 an inch and a half across. No nursery- 

 man offers it, for I dare say it is a bit 

 weedy for the garden and does not bloom 

 long enough. But the wild garden is 

 just the place for such things, since they 

 must be strong enough to take care of 

 themselves and you do not mind a short 

 period of bloom for any particular flower, 

 since it is easy to get a succession. 



THE NARCISSUS-FLOWERED ANEMONE 



We now come to the species suitable 

 for the rock garden, and one of the most 

 interesting cf them is the narcissus-flowered 

 anemone (A. narcissiflora), which can be 

 recognized at once whenever it has five 

 or more flowers in a flat-topped cluster, 

 or umbel. Unfortunately, you cannot dis- 

 tinguish these summer windflowers by the 

 number of blossoms, for every species may 

 have from one to five in an axil. The 

 average is about three. Nicholson calls 

 it "an extremely variable and beautiful 

 species." Tbe flower is usually cream- 

 colored, but sometimes purplish outside, 

 while the plant varies from six to eighteen 

 inches in height, and the flowers from one- 

 half to one inch wide. It is a European 

 species, but is hardy at Ottawa. Unfor- 

 tunately it is a hard plant to multiply, com- 

 pared with the Japanese anemone which 

 is easily propagated by division. In Eu- 

 rope it blooms in May, but in our Northern 

 states we should perhaps expect it in June. 



THE CUT-LEAVED ANEMONE 



The cut-leaved anemone or red wind- 

 flower {A. multifida) has, perhaps, the 



