ANEMONE (Anemone purpurea striata stellata). The anemone is described in "Venus and Adonis" very minutely:[44]

Adonis, the beautiful youth, beloved of Venus, was wounded by a boar, to which he had given chase. Venus found him as he lay dying on the grass. To make him immortal she changed him into an anemone, or windflower. Naturally the flower was dedicated to Venus.

Bion sang:

Pliny asserted the anemone only blooms when the wind blows.

The flower was associated with illness in the days of the Egyptians and also during the Middle Ages, when there was also a superstition that the first anemone gathered would prove a charm against disease. The first spring blossom was, therefore, eagerly searched for, delightedly plucked, and carefully guarded. No token of affection was more prized by a loved one going off on a journey than the gift of an anemone. An old ballad has the lines:

Anemones were greatly valued in Elizabethan gardens. Indeed it was a fad to grow them. Parkinson distinguishes the family of anemones as "the wild and the tame, or manured, both of them nourished up in gardens." He classifies them still further as "those that have broader leaves and those that have thinner, or more jagged, leaves"; and then again into those "that bear single flowers and those that bear double flowers." The wild kinds included "all the Pulsatillas, or Pasque (Easter) flowers." Parkinson mentions many varieties. He describes the "tame" anemones as white, yellow, purple, crimson, scarlet, blush gredeline (between peach color and violet), orange-tawny, apple-blossom, rose-color, and many others. From his list we can have no doubt that Shakespeare's flower was one of the purple star anemones—the Anemone purpurea striata stellata, "whose flowers have many white lines and stripes through the leaves." Parkinson's name is "the purple-striped Anemone."

Of recent years anemones have again become the fashion.

"How gorgeous are these flowers to behold," exclaims Ryder Haggard, "with their hues of vivid scarlet and purple! To be really appreciated, however, they should, I think, be seen in their native home, the East. In the neighborhood of Mount Tabor in Palestine, I have met with them in such millions that for miles the whole plain is stained red, blue and white, growing so thickly indeed that to walk across it without setting foot on a flower at every step would be difficult. I believe, and I think that this view is very generally accepted, that these are the same lilies of the field that 'toil not neither do they spin,' which Our Lord used to illustrate His immortal lesson. Truly Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

The Adonis flower (Flos Adonis) spoken of by Ben Jonson and others has nothing to do with the anemone. It is a kind of camomile. "Some have taken the red kind to be a kind of Anemone," says Parkinson. "The most usual name now with us is Flos Adonis. In English it is also called the Mayweed and Rosarubie and Adonis Flower."

HAREBELL (Scilla nutans).[45] The "azured harebell," which Shakespeare uses in "Cymbeline" for comparison with the delicate veins of Fidele (Imogen), has been identified as the English jacinth, blue harebell, or hare's-bell. Browne's "Pastorals" show that this flower was only worn by faithful lovers; and, therefore, the flower is most appropriately selected for association with Imogen. Browne says:

This flower is also called the "wild hyacinth." Blossoming in May and June, it is one of the precious ornaments of English woods. "Dust of sapphire," its jewel-like flowers have been called.

"Our English jacinth, or harebells," writes Parkinson, "is so common everywhere that it scarce needeth any description. It beareth divers long narrow green leaves, not standing upright, not yet fully lying on the ground, among which springeth up the stalk, bearing at the top many long and hollow flowers, hanging down their heads, all forwards, for the most part, parted at the brims into six parts, turning up their points a little again, of a sweetish, but heady, scent, like unto the Grapeflower. The heads for seed are long and square, wherein is much black seed. The color of the flowers is in some of a deep blue tending to purple, in others of a paler blue, or of a bleak blue tending to an ash color. Some are pure white and some are parti-colored blue and white; and some are of a fine delayed purplish red, or bluish color, which some call a pearl color."