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Species of the Week
Number 35 --
April 9, 2007
In the Species of the Week feature of the Wildwood Web we took a close look
at one of the species that lives in Wildwood. To see the earlier featured species check the Species
of the Week archives.
The recent return of winter weather to our area has stressed the flowers in
the Park. Many are drooping. While the plants will certainly
survive, some of the flowers and buds will die. Despite the cold,
however, this week's Species is doing well. The flowers were wide open
on Saturday and spreading a bit of cheer amid the snow and icy wind.
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Rue Anemone
Thalictrum thalictroides
Rue anemones are small, delicate
plants with a cluster of one to six flowers less than half an inch
to about an inch wide. The flowers technically have no petals,
but instead have five to ten white or colored sepals. Although
white is the most common color, the sepals may be tinged with with
pale pink, purple, blue or green. The ones I've seen in
Wildwood have all been pure white. They have a single pair of
leaves just under the flower cluster, as well as a number of leaves
arising directly from the roots, that is basal leaves. All the
leaves are compound, meaning they are made of smaller leaflets.
Rue anemone leaves have three leaflets, each of which has three
rounded lobes at the tip. This is very distinctive of
spring-flowering plants in our area, which makes it very easy to
identify. |
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| The three-lobed leaves, however, are typical of
members of the genus Thalictrum, the meadow rues. Rue
anemone differs from other members of this genus in having flowers
either solitary or in flat-topped clusters. All other meadow
rues have flowers in elongated or spreading inflorescences.
For this reason, rue anemone used to be called Anemonella
thalictroides and was placed in its own genus,
Anemonella, which it shared with no other plant. Many
botanists still insist on using this older name, which means "little
anemone resembling a Thalictrum," and makes note of the
plants resemblance to both the white-flowered spring blooming
anemones and the meadow rues. The common name also compares it
to both anemones and meadow rues. When it was decided to
move the plant into the genus Thalictrum, the rules of
botanical nomenclature required it to retain its original species
name, thalictroides, which gives us the absurd Thalictrum
thalictroides, or "Thalictrum that resembles a
Thalictrum." As any bureaucrat will tell you, absurdity is
not a good reason to break the rules. The genus name Thalictrum
comes from the Greek thaliktron, an unknown plant mentioned
by the Greek physician Dioscorides (for whom
wild yams were named). |
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Rue anemone is one of the spring-blooming plants known as spring
ephemerals. These plants grow quickly from underground roots
in the early spring, flower and produce seed, and often die back
again before the trees have leafed out. In this way, they are
able to take advantage of the brief period each year when the
deciduous woodlands are warm enough for growth and bright enough to
provide ample sunshine for photosynthesis. Few flowers bloom in the
deep woods in the summer and fall; there is just too little light
available.
Cherokee Indians used the roots to make an infusion with which
they treated diarrhea and vomiting. How successful the
treatment may have been, I do not know.
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| Rue anemone brightens the woods, thickets, and streambanks each
spring from New England south to Georgia and Alabama and west to
Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota. In
Wildwood, it seems to be most common on the eastern slope of
the Park, although a number of healthy plants can be seen
along the west side trail below Adam's Cave. On the
east side it is scattered all over the slope and can be seen
from the trails. A number of plants may be seen on the
east side of Wildwood Drive, and there is a huge colony on
the slopes above the junction of Wildwood Drive and the
Riverway. Rue anemones, and all meadow rues are in the Ranunculaceae, the
Buttercup Family. Many Wildwood plants are in this family,
including true anemomes like
thimbleweed, leatherflowers
and Virgin's bowers, larkspurs, columbines, and, of course,
buttercups.
GGC |
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