windflower

wind +‎ flower

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,

     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,

     “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,

     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,

     “ […] 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. […] ”

• wood anemone, European thimbleweed, smell fox