GENTIANACE.E. IQI 



A. tuberosa {Tuberous-rooted Swallow-wort). — This species 

 grows 2 or 3 feet high, the stems erect and branching. The 

 leaves are lance-shaped, hairy on both sides. The flowers, in 

 compact umbels, are orange, and appear from July to Septem- 

 ber. Native of North America. 



GENTIANACE^. 



A very handsome order of plants, and mainly herbaceous, 

 though not all hardy. Gentia?ia is the principal genus, and 

 the type of the order. In it there are some of the most beauti- 

 ful and brilliant of hardy subjects, over which the true lover of 

 plants becomes enthusiastic, and regards as his horticultural 

 gods. The same may be said of Spigelia, of which only one 

 species is occasionally observed in cultivation : a lovely plant, 

 but always difficult to keep, and requiring too peculiar condi- 

 tions perhaps ever to become popular, for without peculiar 

 treatment it refuses to yield its charms, or live for any length of 

 time. Menyanthes dindLimjia?ithe?num, or Villarsia, are the only 

 two other genera in the order that, besides Gentian and Worm- 

 grass, yield hardy ornamental subjects. These are both aqua- 

 tic plants, and each furnishes only one species known at present 

 to cultivation out of doors. They are handsome plants, adapted 

 to ornament the margins of ponds or lakes, or other still shallow 

 waters ; and both are found in greater or less frequency in the 

 natural lakes or ponds of Britain and Ireland, though not so 

 often in those that are artificial as might be expected, consi- 

 dering their great beauty, elegance, and fragrance. 



Gentiana ( Gentian). — An extensive genus, comprising some 

 of the loveliest of hardy herbs. The species are mostly inhabit- 

 ants of alpine homes; some of them, indeed, flourish well only 

 at the utmost limits of vegetation on the great alpine ranges of 

 the world and the arctic regions, and such are difficult to culti- 

 vate for any length of time, however closely the circumstances 

 of their wild homes may be imitated; but they are not a nume- 

 rous class, though they certainly are in a few cases amongst the 

 most brilliant of the genus. 



Another group, more numerous and less difficult to manage 

 in cultivation, are found in nature to prefer high mountain 

 pastures, dry or moist, in gravelly soil in which vegetation is 

 scanty, and in deep rich alluvial earth or peat where plants 

 become comparatively luxuriant and more numerous. These 



