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
they 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 in case visitors seeking pollen
fail to bring any from other anemones - all these features teach
that every plant is what it is for excellent reasons of its own;
that it is a sentient being, not to be admired for superficial
beauty merely, but also for those same traits which operate in
the human race, making it the most interesting of studies.
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