Spring Flowers

Pasque flowers (Anemone patens, also Pulsatilla patens) are always the first to come up every year, and their fuzzy stems are often seen pushing through the snow before anything else is even beginning to green up. The heavy, late snows this spring have been very good for them, and we have noticed them in greater abundance this year than most of us have seen before.

The mature seed heads look like a bushy dandelion, and the cotton from these seed heads used to be burned on hot coals and the smoke inhaled to treat headaches. Leaves were also crushed and used to treat colds, or applied to the nose for nosebleeds.