GENTIANA. 
but resents disturbance and needs time and care for its re-establish- 
ment. There are two magnificent specimens of G. Rostant, however, 
in England ; their only drawback being that they are not Gentiana 
Rostani at all. 
G. Saponaria makes a handsome spectacle in moist places of 
American woods from Connecticut to Ontario, &c.; a smooth species 
of uprising habit and stems of about 9 inches or a foot high, set with 
pairs of narrowish oval-pointed leaves, and ending in late summer in 
a cluster of flowers, with others appearing in the axils of the upper 
leaves. These flowers are wide-mouthed, and of brilliant blue, the 
lobes of the corolla being very little longer than the lobed fold between 
each, which is gashed into two conspicuous teeth, so as to give special 
richness to the contour of the blossom’s fringy-looking lip. 
G. saxosa lives rather below the level of one’s reasonable hopes, on 
the shore-rocks in the South Island of New Zealand, not ascending 
more than some 800 feet into the hills. Yet such are the surprises 
of horticulture that we may well continue longing to give a chance 
to this superb Gentian. It makes a number of branching stems that 
first decline and then ascend, being some 6 inches or so in length, set 
with a crowd of fleshy nerveless leaves on footstalks as long as them- 
selves, and so concluding with nobly large and sumptuous white cups 
like those of a gigantic Linum, either solitary or in clusters of some 
three or four, or even half a dozen. 
G. scabra is a handsome species, erect in habit, with narrowish 
oval dark leaves and loosely branching pyramids about 9 inches high, 
or more, of ample blue-purple bells. It is an Asiatic plant, and its 
Japanese form, J. scabra Buergeri, is perhaps even handsomer, but 
blooms even later (though quite as easy of culture), so as hardly to have 
attained its fullest beauty in most English gardens by the time the 
frosts and rain are beginning to descend in their final violence. It 
should be given the treatment of G. septemfida in full sun to hurry it. 
G. Sceptrum is a fine large species from 2 to 4 feet high, with fleshy 
stems set in oblong-narrow pairs of leaves, and ending in a cluster of 
big deep blue blossoms about 2 inches long. (North America.) 
G. septemfida with its various varieties is indeed a friend of man. 
No Gentian is more amenable, and hardly any more beautiful. It 
occupies all the alpine fields of the Caucasus up to about 9000 feet 
—a species after the heart and habit of G. asclepiadea, which it there 
accompanies. And none the less easy of culture ; for, if a good sound 
piece be planted in good sound soil of peat and loam, in a comfortable 
place not parched or stagnant, it will yearly go ahead for ever with 
ever-increasing multitudes of its rather weak 9-inch stems, set with 
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