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 This
is one of the most memorable and beautiful Mediterranean plants because of its
brightly-coloured flowers, which are among the first to appear in the early spring
(although exceptionally bad storms of rain or hail and cold winds have been known to
retard the flowering time until the sun encourages them to appear). Flower stems 10-30 cm
high, bearing a solitary flower head, leaf-like twice cut into narrow segments.
Flowers large, 4-8 cms across, without green sepals,
which distingguishes it clearly from the Asiatic Buttercup; 5-8 oval petals, in many
different flower colours of lavender, lilac, deep purple, red to scarlet, rose-pink,
magneta, and more rarely white, blue or in many and various intermediate shades, sometimes
two-coloured, with a white or pale base; even the white have a circle of white in the area
near the stamens (the white petals make this circle more difficult to see, but caught in
the sun at certain angle the white circle shines silvery-white or white).
The red form and the shades of purple are the most
widespread, but it is very exciting to find the rarer pale apricot pink and the deep
salmon pink. Fruiting heads become taller and more cylindirical as the petals fade.
Stamens numerous; filaments pink, violet or red; anthers purplish or black; styles
threadlike 1-2 mm long, blackish. Torus ovoid; nutlets densely woolly. Leaves broadly
triangular, 3-12 cm across, divided into 3 triangular, stalked, pinnatifid or deeply
divided segments, ultimate divisions narrow, variously toothed; stalks 3-7 cm long.
Habitat:
Habitat of both normal and dwarf forms (var. parviflora) with just as many brilliant
colours, but with flowers no larger than a lady's small watch-face, open spaces, grassy
slopes and hillsides, in cultivated and fallow fields, by roadsides; sea-level to 2,900 ft
alt. on the Kyrenia range, near Five Finger mts and across from he south face towards the
Nicosia road. Flowers from December to April.
Distribution:
Kyrenia- Karaoglanoglu (Akamas) according to Meikle in 1962 (var. coronaria). It
grows in profusion among the foothills of the Kyrenia range (north face) and on the
roadsides, also on the furrow-ridges of agricultural land between Tepebasi and
Guzelyurt.
The dwarf anemones were in olive groves and open scrubland north-west of Five Finger
mts.,
near the village of Arapkoy.
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