Swertia.] XCVII. GENTIANACER. (C. B. Clarke.) 121 
.., W. Deccan PENINSULA ; in the Ghats, from Bombay southwards ; common in the 
Nilgherries. 
Stem 2-9 in., usually undivided at the base, without radical leaves. Cauline 
leaves 2 by ł in. sessile. Sepals 3 by } in. elliptic. Corolla white or clear blue, 
nearly 5-partite ; segments oblong, base naked or minutely glandular, scarcely pitted. 
Anthers small, ovate, much shorter than the filament. Ovary sessile, oblong ; stigma 
sessile, shortly bilobed. Capsule } in., oblong. Seeds minute, subglobose.—Genus 
doubtful ; in the symmetrical erect habit, 4-merous flowers, corolla without green 
nerves, it approaches Swertia Sect. Ophelia (see Swertia Beddomei). 
12. SWERTIA, Linn. 
Annual or perennial herbs. Leaves opposite except in S. alternifolia. Flowers 
blue, lurid, or whiteish, sometimes with yellow glands; cymes in thyrsoid or 
corymbose panicles. Sepals 4-5, lanceolate, rarely ovate. Corolla rotate ; lobes 
4-5, twisted to the right; on each lobe (or on the short corolla-tube below its 
) are 1 or 2 pits depressions or glands, naked or partly covered by a basal 
scale; margins of pits fimbriate all round, or at its apex only; scale naked or 
tips fimbriate. Stamens 4-5, attached near the base of the corolla, free, rarely 
monadelphous, filaments linear complanate, often more or less dilated down- 
Wards ; anthers oblong ovate or hastate, versatile. Ovary 1-celled, placente 
little intruded ; style 0 or short rarely linear-cylindric, stigmas 2. Capsule 
sessile, ovate or oblong, separating into its 2 carpels. Seeds various, many, 
rarely few, small or minute, testa close or very lax or winged reticulate.— 
Species 50; in Europe, Asia, and Africa, principally in the mountains. 
In the species with one pit at the very base of each corolla-lobe, this pit seems 
homologous with the spur of Zalemia. There is a passage from the species 
with a depressed broad viscous spot, fimbriate on the margins only to those which 
have 2 small lateral linear vertical glands; among these S. cerulea, with very small 
depressions, should perhaps be removed to Pleurogyne. In S. bimaculata, where there 
are 2 green viscous spots, scarcely depressed, in the middle of the corolla-lobes, the 
morphology is obscure. 
.SUBGENUs I. Ophelia. Stems annual or once-flowering, erect, panicled, 
solid, virgate. Radical leaves 0 at the time of flowering. 
* Flowers ali (or most of them) 5-merous. 
t Sepals almost Sree. 
1. S. purpurascens, Wail. Cat. 4379 ; leaves oblong or lanceolate 3-1- 
herved, filaments dilated downwards united into a short tube free from the 
corolla, style long stigmas sublinear. Ophelia purpurascens, D. Don in Trans. 
Linn. Soc. xvii. 526; Griseb. Gentian. 315, and in DC. Prodr. ix. 124; Wight 
Wil. t. 157, bis 3, fig. d. O. Dalhousiana, Griseb. Gentian. 313, and in DC. 
Prodr, ix. 123, O. ciliata, G. Don Gen. Syst. iv. 178. 
TEMPERATE N.W. Hiımaraya, alt. 5-12,000 ft.; from Kashmir to Kumaon; 
abundant near Dalhousie and Dhurmsala. 
Stems 8-36 in., terete or 4-lineolate. Leaves 14 by 4 in., base narrowed, lowest 
subobtuse, uppermost acute, glabrous, Panicles divaricate, many-flowered, leafy ; 
Pedicels often clustered. Sepals à in., oblong, 1-nerved. Corolla-lobes 4 in., ovate, 
hostes urple or dark red, reflexed in flower; pits solitary near the base of each lobe. 
orse-shoe shaped, naked. Stamen-twbhe erect, and filaments puberulous ; anthers 
*lliptic-lanceolate, much acuminate. Seeds j; in. diam., globose, henge light-yellow 
Wien ripe.—Grisebach’s t; specimens of S. purpu 
identical. This species is resoxniond at once by the red-purple much-reflexed corolla- 
obes. There is a strong purple band near the base of the eorolla-lobe which is 
