512 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 31 



That immense family Ranunculaceae is so largely represented 

 about the Lake of Lucerne that all the allotted space for this paper 

 might easily be filled with the briefest sketch of its pretty Swiss 

 species. One of these is Clematis alpina, that fine creeping shrub 

 with large, solitary violet flowers borne on long stalks. It loves 

 stony, wooded uplands 2,000 to 7,000 feet above the sea. The flowers 

 persist for a long time in shady nooks from June to August, and the 

 plant has a pleasing habit of covering the rugged limestone rocks 

 among which it grows with its present leaves and last year's tendrils. 



Of the numerous Swiss anemones, A. hepatica^ as described in 

 Flemwell's "Alpine Flowers and Gardens," reminds one of our own 

 spring flower, the earliest of the year. "As the snow recedes," says 

 he, " the brown bed of the pine forests (around Bex in the Rhone 

 valley) is decked with myriads of Hepatica; their thick clusters of 

 mauve-blue flowers, relieved here and there by the rarer forms of 

 white and rose, . . . creating a veritable laughing fairyland where, 

 usually, all is sedate if not gloomy." 



The gentians : The Forest Cantons have their proper share of this 

 world family. There are fully 20 species of the genus found in 

 Switzerland, most of them about the Lake of Lucerne. The flowers 

 of the gentians are usually a deep blue, but in some species are 

 mauve, yellow, purple, or nearly white. Though they are generally 

 solitary on the flower stalk, yet they also occur in terminal cymes. 

 Both corolla and calyx are distinctly tubular and often angled. 

 The accompanying figure (pi. 3) shows Gentiana acaulis, the stem- 

 less gentian. Although in this species the flower stem is very short, 

 it is not absent, as Linnaeus pointed out in his description of the type 

 specimen now in the Linnaean Herbarium at Burlington House, 

 London. The corolla is 1 to li/^ inches long and is deep blue, with 

 greenish (rarely) white or mauve streaks. This beautiful plant 

 grows in grassy Alpine pastures and meadows up to 8,500 feet. 

 Its association with the edelweiss in the illustration (pi. 3) is car- 

 ried out in bouquets sold to tourists where the one flower is a foil 

 to the other — both supposed to have been gathered well up to the 

 snow line. 



Gentiana nivalis must also be mentioned, as it is the species that 

 from June to September shows its small blue or mauve flowers at 

 great elevations (5,000 to 10,000 feet) and opens them only when 

 the sun shines brightly. It is a small plant, 1 to 6 inches high. 



Fringed gentian {Gentiana ciliata) : This beautiful species has 

 been justly celebrated in verse and prose. It is a hardy biennial or 

 perennial, with a stem 3 to 10 inches high, carrying large, handsome, 

 pale (electric) blue flowers with a strongly divided corolla, whose 

 margins are strongly " fringed " or ciliated. The flowers are often 

 solitary, or there may be several to the stalk. This lovely plant 



