different between ranunculaceae vs windflower

English

Wikispecies

Etymology

wind +? flower

Noun

windflower (plural windflowers)

1. An early spring flowering species of the family Ranunculaceae, Anemone nemorosa.
   • 1649, Nicholas Culpeper, A physicall directory, or, A translation of the London dispensatory made by the Colledge of Physicians in London, London: Peter Cole, p. 40,^[1]

     Herba venti, Anemone. Wind flower, the juyce snuffed up the nose purgeth the head, it cleanseth filthy ulcers, encreaseth milk in nurses, and outwardly by ointment helps Leprosyes.

   • 1881, Christina Rossetti, “One Foot on the Sea, and One on Shore” in A Pageant and Other Poems, London: Macmillan, p. 95,^[2]

     “When windflowers blossom on the sea

     And fishes skim along the plain,

     Then we who part this weary day,

     Then you and I shall meet again.”

   • 1928, D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, New York: Bantam, 1983, Chapter 8, p. 89,^[3]

     The first windflowers were out, and all the wood seemed pale with the pallor of endless little anemones, sprinkling the shaken floor.

   • 1963, Aldous Huxley, Island, New York: Bantam, Chapter 7, p. 101,^[4]

     “ […] We spent an hour in a hazel copse, picking primroses and looking at the little white windflowers. One doesn’t pick the windflowers,” he explained, “because in an hour they’re withered. […] ”

Synonyms

• wood anemone, European thimbleweed, smell fox

Translations