NAT. ORDER. — GENTIANE^. 



55 



mountainous regions of Europe, Asia, and America. They are 

 mostly dwarf herbaceous plants, with deep blue, yellow, or white 

 flowers, the former color prevailing. They are all pretty and most 

 of them beautiful in the highest degree, but with few exceptions, 

 they are impatient of cultivation. The species are numerous, but 

 mostly valuable as ornaments, rather than their utility in medicine 

 The following are the varieties cultivated and used in medicine. 



Gentiana Cutea. Yellow Gentian. This has a thick root, of a 

 yellowish brown color, and a very bitter taste, the lower leaves are 

 petioled, oblong-ovate, a little pointed, stiff, yellowish green, having 

 five large veins on tiie back, and plaited ; the stem three or four 

 feet high or more, with a pair of leaves at each joint, sessile or almost 

 embracing, of the same form "with the lower ones, but diminishing 

 gradually to the top ; the flowers are in whorls at the upper joints. 

 Tills is a native of Switzerland, and produces its flowers in June 

 and .July. 



Gentiana punctata. Spotted-flowered Gentian. Tliis plant has 

 the leaves ovate, elongated, and strict ; the calyxes shallow, and in 

 form of a basin, the calycine teeth narrow, sharp, and not very leafy ; 

 the corolla is of a papery substance, extremely thin, of a dull and 

 very pale greenish straw-color, with very minute dots thickly and 

 irregularly scattered over it ; the segments of the border are most 

 generally seven, sometimes eight, but very seldom six, always shor- 

 ter, narrower, contiguous, rounded, blunt, without any auricles at 

 the base ; and finally the bell part of the corolla is blunter and 

 almost the same over the whole bell. It is a native of Lower 

 Canada and is found in some parts of Vermont and New Hampshire. 



Gentiana asdepiatka. Swallow-wort-leaved Gentian. This plant 

 has the stem upright, nearly a foot in height ; the leaves smooth, 

 about two inches long, and three quarters of an inch broad at the 

 ba.se, embracing there, and ending in an acute point; they are of a 

 fine, beautiful green, have five longitudinal veins, joining at both 

 ends, but diverging in the middle, and diminish in size as they are 



