Rue Anemone

I'm pretty sure I have never rued a good walk, and today, even though a kind of rue figured heavily in my latest journey of discovery, I certainly had no cause for regret. This rue was a Rue Anemone, a member of the first wave of woodland wildflowers that grace the forest floor. Thalictrum thalictroides, as the plant is known to botanists—traditionalists also call it by an earlier name, Anemonella thalictroides—is a delicate-looking, less-than-a-foot-tall, white-blossomed species that has three-lobed leaves. The entire contrivance is easily ruffled by the slightest of breezes, and this tendency gives the species its other common name: windflower. Whatever you call it, I couldn't put a moniker on it when I first detected the plant in the dappled sunlight, where it was growing surrounding by unrolling fern fiddleheads, Mayflower leaves, and Wood Anemone blossoms. I knew I'd seen it plenty of times before, and I was certain I'd identified it in a previous life. The name wouldn't come to me right away, however, but when I got to the car and my copy of the Peterson Field Guide to the Wildflowers, it didn't take long to locate the species. With any luck, it'll remain in my memory longer than it will be in bloom.