GENTIANA. 
about half a foot or more in height, the basal leaves being rather 
pointed. 
G. excisa, Presl., is the only plant now subsisting under a name 
which in time past has been used for G. latifolia no less than for the 
quite unexcised G. vulgaris. It will be found described under G. 
“acaulis,” so as to make our Alpine Trumpet-group complete. 
G. Farrert is the marvel described under G. ornaia, q.v. 
G. Favrati leads us again upon the alpine mountains cold. It isa 
rare species, occasionally to be met with in the limestone Alps. It is, 
in habit and everything else, a yet dwarfer and more beautiful G. 
verna, but its flowers are of a much lighter and more brilliant soft azure, 
and so much broader in the segments than most forms of G. verna that 
the lobes are often wider than their length ; above all, the plant may 
instantly be recognised by the leaves of its pleasant clumps. For 
these, arranged more in rosettes, are not only more numerous, but 
round or oval, instead of having any trace of the point which is in- 
variable in G. verna. It is almost stemless at time of flowering, 
and is altogether a most beautiful jewel, and not of any difficult 
temper, though usually sent out, unfortunately, in little wizzly thready 
pieces, so rootless and minute as to have no reasonable chance of re- 
establishing themselves. 
G. Fetisowit is another rather profitless coarse weed of pallid flower 
and leafy habit from Siberia, blooming in late summer, for what its 
anaemic heads of insignificant blossom may be worth. 
G. firma=G. vulgaris. See under G. “ acaulis.” 
G. flavida (G. alba, Man. not Muhl.) is another ugly thing—tall and 
stout, and wrapped in ample leafage with whitish flowers packed into 
clusters. Sandy places of North America are responsible for this. 
G. Forwood follows the fashion of G. affinis, but is smaller. 
G. Freyniana clings close under the shadow of G. septemfida, and 
its claims to specific rank are not universally acknowledged. For the 
garden, however, it is a plant distinct and precious, in any cool rich 
soil making tufts of shoots, clad in pairs of dark glossy leaves, oval and 
pointed, and then in late summer, when they are some 6 inches high, 
unfolding a head of one, two, or three large and brilliant bells of bright 
blue, after the habit of G. septemfida’s, with the same wide lobes, and 
the same interlobar folds, conspicuous and crested. 
G. frigida belongs to the highest granite ridges of the Alps, where 
it is rather rare and (like many special plants of the high granites) 
rather ugly. It has narrow fleshy leaves at the base, long and few ; 
then arise one or two stems about 3 inches high, more or less, set with 
another similar pair or so; bearing at the top, from a cup of two or 
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