Such, as on Punic apples is revealed Or in the filmy rind but half concealed, Still here the fate of lonely forms we see, So sudden fades the sweet Anemone.  The feeble stems to stormy blasts a prey Their sickly beauties droop, and pine away The winds forbid the flowers to flourish long Which owe to winds their names in Grecian song.

The concluding couplet alludes to the Grecian name of the flower ([Greek:  anemos], anemos, the wind.)

It is said of the Anemone that it never opens its lips until Zephyr kisses them.  Sir William Jones alludes to its short-lived beauty.

    Youth, like a thin anemone, displays
    His silken leaf, and in a morn decays.

Horace Smith speaks of

    The coy anemone that ne’er discloses
    Her lips until they’re blown on by the wind

Plants open out their leaves to breathe the air just as eagerly as they throw down their roots to suck up the moisture of the earth.  Dr. Linley, indeed says, “they feed more by their leaves than their roots.”  I lately met with a curious illustration of the fact that plants draw a larger proportion of their nourishment from light and air than is commonly supposed.  I had a beautiful convolvulus growing upon a trellis work in an upper verandah with a south-western aspect.  The root of the plant was in pots.  The convolvulus growing too luxuriantly and encroaching too much upon the space devoted to a creeper of another kind, I separated its upper branches from the root and left them to die.  The leaves began to fade the second day and most of them were quite dead the third or fourth day, but two or three of the smallest retained a sickly life for some days more.  The buds or rather chalices outlived the leaves.  The chalices continued to expand every morning, for—­I am afraid to say how long a time—­it might seem perfectly incredible.  The convolvulus is a plant of a rather delicate character and I was perfectly astonished at its tenacity of life in this case.  I should mention that this happened in the rainy season and that the upper part of the creeper was partially protected from the sun.

The Anemone seems to have been a great favorite with Mrs. Hemans.  She thus addresses it.

    Flower!  The laurel still may shed
    Brightness round the victor’s head,
    And the rose in beauty’s hair
    Still its festal glory wear;
    And the willow-leaves droop o’er
    Brows which love sustains no more
    But by living rays refined,
    Thou the trembler of the wind,
    Thou, the spiritual flower
    Sentient of each breeze and shower,[067]
    Thou, rejoicing in the skies
    And transpierced with all their dyes;
    Breathing-vase with light o’erflowing,
    Gem-like to thy centre flowing,
    Thou the Poet’s type shall be
    Flower of soul, Anemone!