GENTIANA. 
distract them from their thoughts of home. Among such company 
may be Phyteuma pauciflorum, Saxifraga retusa, S. Rudolphiana, 
Soldanella pusilia, S. minima, Primula minima, Veronica canescens, 
Arenaria ciliata, Eritrichium, Douglasia laevigata, and Vitaliana, the 
Androsaces Charpentieri, carnea Laggerit, and Wulfeniana, Myosotis 
rupicola, and many another choice fine thing to be thought of with - 
care ; while 2inches underground are bulbs of Crocus vernus, minimus, 
Scharojam, &c., with all the choicest wee Daffodils and bulbous Irids 
for the early year. For G. verna that likes coarser fare, such fine grass 
as Festuca ovina tenuifolia, Dianthus alpinus, Primula farinosa, and 
perhaps, if you are rash and an able weeder, the silver mats of Anten- 
naria dioica. In any case, with such comforts your most difficult 
Gentians should be at home ; though this is not to say that here is the 
only means of making them so, but merely a suggestion of one that 
may prove to be among the best. As for G. verna, luck and temper 
play pranks with the plant, and it succeeds paradoxically every now 
and then in the oddest places, and under the weirdest conditions ; one 
of the finest masses I ever knew was growing in pure hot sand in which 
it had been ignorantly put by somebody who apparently mixed up 
Gentiana with Abronia, and on the same bank, in full sun and the 
same dry ground, was growing Nymphaea odoraia. So that there 
is always hope, and never any hard rule: but only good-fortune 
assisting experience. 
Gentiana is a race of extraordinary diffusion and diversity, alike 
in habit and colour. The Gentians of the New World are hardly less 
abundant than those of the Old; and on the Arctic rims of the North, 
their fame is hardly less widespread than on the Antarctic of the South. 
Nor is the race less various in size and coiour, ranging from the statu- 
esque proportions of G. venosa to the minute charm of G. imbricata. 
In colour, too, it contains every note of the prism, from the dazzling 
azure of G. verna, the sombre browns of G. purpurea, the clear lovely 
purple of G. pyrenaica, and on, through the yellows of G. lutea towards 
the delicate waxy pinks and whites of G. concinna and G. cerina (none 
of the New Zealanders being blue, and none of the Himalayans any- 
thing else). All of these can be raised from seed, but with care and 
slowly ; all the alpine tufts can be propagated by cuttings, but with 
equal care; but established tufts of Gentian should always be left 
alone, lest a worse thing befall. Their blooming season fills the 
summer; the high-alpines usually take up the fading mantle of G. 
verna in July, and continue on through the glories of the Asclepiadea 
group, with G. verna very often reappearing in September and October 
to finish the round that it began in May; while G. Gentianella, the old 
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