LXXIV.— THE PASQUE-FLOWER. 
Anemone Pulsatilla Linne. 
T T 7”HILST those types of the Ranunculaccie that we have already described 
V V agree in having more than one seed in each carpel, so that the fruit is made 
up of dehiscent follicles, the genus Anemone and those which follow agree in having 
but one ovule in each carpel, so that in the fruit stage the latter becomes an 
indehiscent achene. 
Anemone agrees with several other genera, such as Ranunculus^ Myosurus, and 
Thalictrum, in being herbaceous and in having the sepals imbricate ; and in some of 
its allies, as in the genus itself, the leaves are all radical, there is an involucre below 
the flower, and the sepals are petaloid and thus perform the attractive function of 
the petals which are absent. As a genus it may be characterised as consisting of 
scapigerous herbs with a perennial rhizome ; leaves all radical and lobed, often deeply ; 
flowers mostly solitary or in few-flowered cymes ; involucre of three leafy bracts in 
a whorl, generally some little distance below the flower ; petaloid sepals from four to 
twenty in number, longer than the stamens ; petals absent, or at most represented by 
the conversion of some of the outer stamens into stalked nectariferous glands ; and 
a head of numerous carpels with persistent styles. The genus comprises some ninety 
species, natives of extra-tropical regions both north and south of the Tropics, which 
possess in a marked degree the acridity so general in the Family. 
Three sub-genera or sections of the genus have been made : Pulsatilla^ in which 
the outer stamens have no anthers and are converted into nectaries, while the achenes 
are each terminated by a long feathery tail or awn formed from the persistent style ; 
Anemone or Eu-anemone^ in which all the stamens bear anthers, the achenes are 
terminated by short styles, and the involucre is distant from the flower ; and Hepatica, 
differing only in having the involucre so close beneath the flower as to be mistaken 
for a calyx. This last sub-genus, though familiar in our gardens, is not represented 
among British plants. 
Although, like those of most of the other members of the Family, the flowers 
of Anemone^ in the arrangement, insertion, and want of cohesion between their parts, 
represent an unspecialised type, and although they are destitute of perfume, they 
include a wide range in colour and in adaptation to insect-visitors. The sepals may 
be the primitive yellow of the Buttercups, Globe-flowers, Marsh Marigolds, and 
Winter Aconite, white, pink-tinged, scarlet, blue, or violet, which last-mentioned 
colour is commonly associated, as in Columbines and Violets, for instance, with 
elaborate structural adaptations for insect-pollination. In some species, such as 
A. japonica Siebold and Zuccarini, and the beautiful A. coronaria Linne of Italian 
meadows, two or more of these colours occur as varieties without other differences. 
The white or pale pink blossoms of the Wood Anemone contain no honey, but are 
visited for the sake of their pollen by short-tongued insects of a low type ; those 
