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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.


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