Gentianales.1 



GENTIANACE^. 



613 



i 



le regions of perpetual suow upon !\ 

 of Europe, to the hottest sands of M^, 



posterior ; while in Figworts, Gesnerworts, Bignoniads, Acanthads, and their allies, a hy- 

 pogynous disk is very common in the shape of a Heshy ring, or of glands, or teeth, and tlie 

 two carpellary leaves are anterior and posterior, the dissepiment being conseciuently in 

 the same transverse line as that which scjiarates the upi»er from the lower lip. Craw- 

 furdia seems to couuect this Order with Bindweeds ; and Voyra, 

 a parasitical, scaly, leafless genus offers a du-ect transition to 

 Broomrapes. 



A numerous Order of herbaceous plants, extending over almost 

 all parts of the world, from the 

 the siunmits of the mountains 



South America and India. They, however, do not appear in the 

 Flora of Melville Island ; but they form part of that of the 

 Straits of Magellan. The most common genus is Gentiana, con- 

 cerning which and its allies, the foUomng observations will be 

 read with interest. 



" Few genera display so full a series of colours in the flowers as 

 this does ; red, blue, yellow and w^hite,are all exhibited in it, with 

 many of the mterinediate compound tints. Yellow and white 

 are rare in the regions of the Gentians, but almost invariably 

 present ; the red species are nearly confined to the Andes of 

 South America and New Zealand. Amongst Dr. Jameson's 

 Botanical Notes on the Flora of the Andes of Peru and Colombia, 

 I find the following interesting remark : Of sixteen species of 

 Gentian ^\^th which I am acquamted, one half are red, four pur- 

 ple, two blue, one yellow, and one white. — Bot. Journ. vol. ii. 

 p. 649. Their inferior limit under the Une we find, from the 

 same source, to be 7852 feet, and they ascend from thence nearly 

 to the Umits of perpetual suow on Cotopaxi ; they do not in South 

 America descend to the level of the sea in a lower latitude than 

 54° or thereabouts, where however there are no Alpine species, 

 though the snow line does not descend below 4000 — 3,500 feet. 

 In the Himalaya, where the species are all blue-flowered, one 

 species has been gathered by my friend Mr. Edgworth, near 

 Ratha Kona, on the Mana Pass, at an elevation of 16,000 feet, 

 near the hmit of perpetual snow ; and another reaches, m lat. 3 1 

 N., the altitude of 12,689, according to Dr. Royle. — Il/ust. 

 Plant. Himal. vol. i. pp. 22 and 278. In Ceylon a species 

 has been gathered at between 6000 and 8000 feet of elevation. 

 One species, G. prostrata, H. B. K., has a most exti-aordinary 

 range both in longitude and latitude ; in southern Europe it in- 

 habits the Carinthian Alps, between 6000 and 9000 feet high ; 

 in Asia it has been found on the Altai Mountains, about lat. N. 

 52°, Its American range is much more remarkable, it havuig 

 been gathered on the tops of the rocky mountains in lat. 52° N. 

 where they attain an elevation of 15,000 — 16,000 feet, and on the 

 east side of the Andes of S. America, in 35° S. : it descends to the level of the sea at 

 Cape Negro, in the Straits of Magellan in lat. 53° S. ; and at Cape Good Hope hi 

 Behring's Straits in lat. 681*' N. 



" The fact of the occurrence, and the great number, of species of Gentiana inhabiting 

 only the more elevated regions of the temperate and tropical zones, and there reaching 

 the snow limit, renders it very remarkable that they should be so j)roportionally scarce 

 in the higher latitudes both of the northern and southern hemispheres. Generally 

 speaking, the inhabitants of these elevated and cold regions are species of such Natural 

 Orders and Genera as compose the mass of Polar vegetation. It is so to a greiit extent 

 ■with certain gi-oups of Ranunculaceae, Grammese, Caryophyllese, Cruciferas Ericaceae, 

 &c., but not with Gentianeae ; the proportion which the species of the transition tempe- 

 rate zones bear to the other plants of those regions on the one hand, and to the tropical 

 species on the other, is in both cases remarkably small. They are entirely unknown to 

 the Floras of the Polar and American Islands ; very few inhabit Grecnlaiul, Iceland, 

 or the Arctic Sea shores in the North, or Tasmania, New Zealand, Fuegia, or the 

 Antarctic Islands in the South ; and again in other parts of N. Europe and America, or 

 of Chili and Patagonia, they are infinitely less numerous than in the Alps of middle 

 and south Europe, or the Andes of the equator."— /os. Hooker, Bot. of Antarctic \ oyage, 

 p. 55. 



Fig. CCCCXV.— Voyra a\\Ti\nt\nca.—Splifffcrber. 



