Reprinted from the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden 17 : 81-82. June, igi6. 



WILD PLANTS NEEDING PROTECTION* 

 12. "Fringed Gentian" (Gentiana crinita Froel.) 



(With Plate CLXXII) 



All lovers of wild flowers, love the "fringed gentian,'' love it 

 to death! and ask, innocently enough, why they do not find it 

 where it used to be abundant. How can an annual grow again 

 in the same place, if all the flowers are taken and none allowed to 

 go to seed? Pull up one of the plants and see the small roots, 

 note that there are no fleshy root-leaves or rosettes, and that all 

 the strength of the plant has been thrown into those showy 

 flowers with fringed, purple petals to insure pollination by in- 

 sects; and also remember, that of all the wild flowers, gentians 

 last the longest when picked, opening and closing for weeks after 

 they are brought home from the country, in a last vain efl^ort to 

 set their seed on which they have staked their whole life! Bum- 

 ble-bees often rob them of the nectar by piercing through the 

 flattened, sheathing calyx, and thus defeat the object of that 

 exquisite 4-leaved table spread so temptingly for the last floral 

 feast ! 



The fringed gentians used to grow in large colonies around the 

 lake in Van Courtland Park and in the swamp at the southern 

 end of Woodlawn Cemetery, usually among goldenrods near 

 the tall bushes of winter berries, that once fringed those bogs, 

 but with the moccasin-flower and other lovely wild flowers they 



* Illustrated by the aid of the Stokes Fund for the Preservation of Native Plants. 



81 



