Anemone

ANEMONE , or windflower. The anemone is a flower of the buttercup family. The plants grow two or three feet high with their leaves on the flower stem. They bloom in the spring, summer, and autumn. Usually, only one flower grows on a stem. The leaves are usually divided, with sharply cut edges.

The wood anemone is the most common variety in North America, growing even in high mountain areas. One species, known as the pasque flower, is the South Dakota state flower. The anemone also grows in England and Central Europe. Perhaps one of the most unusual varieties is the Japanese anemone, which grows up to three feet high and has flowers about three inches across.

The wild type is either white or white tinged with pink. Cultivated varieties, and even pink wild varieties growing in the shade, may have pink, rose, red, or even purple blossoms that are often two inches wide. Under cultivation, the petal-like sepals are numerous and form double flowers. The slender, green stem of the woodland plants creeps along the surface of the ground. Many of the cultivated types have very short, thick root tubers from which new plants grow. The plants come up each year from the same rootstock and, for this reason, are called perennials.