_Anemone quinquefolia_
_Flowers_--Solitary, about 1 in. broad, white or delicately tinted with
blue or pink outside. Calyx of 4 to 9 oval, petal-like sepals; no
petals; stamens and carpels numerous, of indefinite 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 variously cut and lobed parts; also a late-appearing
leaf from the base.
_Preferred Habitat_--Woodlands, 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 gusts’ rude force. Pliny declared that only the wind could
open anemones! 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 born 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 significance 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 scientific
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.”
Note the clusters of tuberous, dahlia-like roots, the whorl of thin,
three-lobed rounded leaflets on long, fine petioles immediately below
the smaller pure white or pinkish flowers usually growing in loose
clusters, to distinguish the more common Rue Anemone _(Anemonella
thalictroides_ or _Syndesmon thalictroides_ or _Thalictrum
anemonoides)_ from its cousin the solitary flowered wood or true
anemone. Generally there are three blossoms of the Rue Anemone to a
cluster, the central one opening first, the side ones only after it has
developed its stamens and pistils to prolong the season of bloom and
encourage cross-pollination by insects. In the eastern half of the
United States, and less abundantly in Canada, these are among the most
familiar spring wild flowers. Pick them and they soon wilt miserably;
lift the plants early, with a good ball of soil about the roots, and
they will unfold their fragile blossoms indoors, bringing with them
something of the unspeakable charm of their native woods and hillsides
just waking into life.