GENTIANA. 
for instance, there is a type of G@. latifolia (on the limestone) which is 
smailier in the flower but of quite a true clear blue, not violent indeed, 
but clean and pure (yielding good white forms, also). The species may 
be known ai once, too, by its ample foliage ; for this is large, but lax 
and limp in texture, lying rather flaccid on the ground (as the flowers 
usually tend to do also, instead of standing bravely up like those of 
G. vulgaris or that noble giant G. excisa), and in colour of a pale and 
washed-out yellowish green without any gloss. The shape of the ample 
leaves, too, is most distinctive, for they are perfectly paddle-shaped, 
and, like a paddle, oval-rounded at the end, and never at all pointed. 
The plant is almost always non-calcareous, standing nearest in the 
race to G. alpina; and the segments of the calyx, very much longer in 
proportion to the bell than in that of G. excisa, are more pavilion-like 
than ever, short and fat and swelling, and then passing into a brief 
point. The species is general over all the chain of the Central Alps, 
on granite, schist or volcanic rock, stretching into the Western 
Pyrenees, but in the Eastern ranges of Tyrol occurring in more 
sporadic outbreaks. It is the tourist’s typical G. « acaulis.”’ 
G. occidentalis (including G. sabauda, Kusn.) is only to be found in 
the Western Pyrenees. It is near to G. excisa in general shape of leaf, 
but the leaf is of less than half the size, and rather broader and more 
swollen in the middle in proportion to its point. The stem is quite 
short, and the trumpet blue; and the lobes of the calyx are long, 
bulging and pointed as in G. dinarica, but not so extreme in their 
pointedness and length. There is, however, an obscure Savoyard 
plant, G. sabauda, Kusn., which is not far away from this, though 
much more acute in the segments. 
G. vulgaris is the last, and perhaps the greatest, species under this 
heading. This rather ugly name is now to swallow up G. Clusit, G.. 
eacisa, G. Rochellit, G. grandiflora, and G. firma—all species recognised 
by former authorities, each one of whom it will be seen has created 
a G. excisa, Presl’s alone being now allowed to stand. The name in 
any case would have been singularly ill-applied to this species, which 
stands quite alone in the group by having the calyx-segments perfectly 
triangular and straighi-sided, with no bulge or swelling at all, mere very 
long, pointed, and quite straightforward narrow deep vandykes. The 
ieaves, too, are narrow and perfectly acute, dark and glossy-green, 
rather smaller than in the last, as a rule, but much more crowded and 
stiffer in their rosette than the pallid lustreless grey-green leafage of 
G. latifolia. The stems are taller and sturdier than those of the last, 
and the flower, if not quite so big as G. excisa’s, is perhaps the most 
beautiful and satisfying in the whole group, being an upstanding wide- 
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