ANEMONE or WIND-FLOWER, a genus of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), containing about 120 species in the tem perate zones. Anemone nemorosa, wood anemone, and A. Pulsa tilla, Pasque-flower, occur in Britain. The plants are perennial herbs with an underground rootstock and radical, deeply cut, leaves. The elongated flower stem bears white, red, blue or, rarely, yellow flowers; there is an involucre of three leaflets below each flower. The fruits often bear long hairy styles for distribution by the wind. Many are favourite garden plants; among the best known is Anemone coronaria, the poppy anemone, a tuberous rooted plant, with divided leaves, and large showy poppy-like blossoms on stalks from 6 to gin. high; the flowers are scarlet, crimson, blue, purple or white. There are also double-flowered varieties. It is enriched with manure. The genus contains many other spring-blooming plants, of which A. hortensis and A. fulgens have less divided leaves and rosy-purple or scarlet flowers. An other set is represented by the Pasque-flower whose violet blos soms have the outer surface hairy; these prefer a calcareous soil. The splendid A. japonica, and its white variety, Honorine Joubert, are fine autumn-blooming perennials; they grow well in light soil. A group of dwarf species, represented by the native British A. nemorosa and A. apennina, are beautiful spring flowers.
In the United States and Canada there are about 20 native species, with representatives in all regions from arctic America and Alaska south to Florida, Texas and California. Among these are some of the most attractive North American wild flowers. Noteworthy species are the American wood anemone (A. quin quefolia), of low woods from Nova Scotia to Minnesota south to Georgia, very similar to the wood anemone (A. nemorosa) of Great Britain; the Canada wind-flower (A. canadensis), with large white flowers, found in low grounds from Labrador to Saskatchewan and southward to Maryland and Colorado; the tall wind-flower or thimble-weed (A. virginiana), with greenish-white flowers, growing in woods from Nova Scotia to Alberta and south to South Carolina and Arkansas ; the long-fruited wind-flower (A. cylindrica), a silky-hairy plant native to open grounds from New Brunswick to British Columbia and south in the Rocky Mountains to New Mexico; the Carolina wind-flower (A. caroli niana), with purple or white flowers, growing in open grounds from Florida to Texas and northward to Wisconsin and South Dakota; the mountain wind-flower (A. trifolia), with large white flowers, often growing with the lily-of-the-valley, native to the Appalachian region; the red wind-flower (A. hudsoniana), silky hairy with red or greenish flowers, found from New Brunswick to Minnesota; the northern wind-flower (A. parviflora), a delicate plant with white flowers, ranging from Labrador to Alaska and southward in the Rocky Mountains to Colorado ; and Richard son's wind-flower (A. Richardsonii), a slender boreal dwarf with yellow flowers, found from Labrador to Hudson bay and widely in arctic America.
To the division Pulsatilla belong the American pasque-flowers (A. patens, var. Wolfgangiana), with handsome blue, purple, or white flowers, a very early spring bloomer on dry prairies and high plains from Illinois to British Columbia and Alaska and south ward to Utah and Texas ; and the western pasque-flower (A. occi dentalis), found on gravelly hills and mountain slopes from Cali fornia to Alaska and eastward to Alberta and Montana. The former is the floral emblem or State flower of South Dakota.