1917-18.] HOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 257 



compact habit with blunter leaves. Its flowers are of a 

 dark blue as in G. sino-ornata, but of a deeper blacker tint. 



Gentiana VeifcJiiorum, Hemsl.^ in Gard. Chron., 3, xlvi 

 (1909), 178, fig. 74. 

 G. ornafa, Hort. (not of Wallich). 

 G. ornata, var. ohtusifolia, Franch. in Bull. Soc. Bot. 



France, xliii (1896), 493 (ace. to Hemsley). 

 G. ornafa, var. Veitcltii, W. Irving in Gard. Chron., 3, 

 Iviii (1915), 288, fig. 100. 

 Perennial herb with thick roots and forming a central 

 rosette from which spread many \ea,iy stolons. Stolons 



1 Heinsley's description muis : — 



Gentiana Veitchiormn, Hemsl. — Nova species ex affinitate G. ornatae. 

 Wall, a qua ditfert foliis latioribus obtusis, calycis lobis subfoliaceis vix 

 acutis, coroUae amplioris lobis latis obtusiusculis et plicis inter lobos 

 latis denticulatis. (r. ornata, var. obtusa, Franch.: — Sinae occidentalis 

 incola, legit. E. H. Wilson. 



At least three different species of Gentiana have been, and perhaps 

 are still, in cultivation under the name ornata, originally given by 

 Wallich to a Himalayan species, which reaches almost to the upper limits 

 of phanerogamic vegetation in that region. Aljout the year 1880 a 

 Gentian was cultivated in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden liearing this 

 name, and was figured in the Botanical Magazine, pi. 6514, as such ; bvit, 

 as was pointed out by W. I. (Walter Irving) in the Gardeners' Chronicle, 

 1906, xl, p. 182, the plant represented is not the true G. ornata of 

 Wallich. What it really is, is uncertain, and the history of its intro- 

 duction into cultivation is apparently not on record. In 1883, the 

 Gardeners' Chronicle published (ii, p. 396, fig. 60) an excellent illustra- 

 tion, reproduced in fig. 75, of the genuine Cr. ornata of Wallich, from 

 specimens grown in the AVisley garden of the late Mr. Wilson. Turn- 

 ing to that, I find that it is a slender trailing plant with narrow, very 

 acute leaves and vei-y acute corolla- lobes, with narrow folds between. A 

 coloured figure of the same species was given in the Botanical Magazine 

 for 1907, pi. 8140. Comparing the Howers actually figured in the 

 Magazine with the type of Wallich's species in the Kew Herbarium, I 

 think there is no doubt that it was correctly identified. Mr. J, Hutchin- 

 son, who contributed the description of that figure, suggests that the 

 plant figured in the Botanical Magazine, pi. 6514, is G. nipponica, but 

 I have not time to follow up this suggestion. 



Now comes a third Gentian, to which the name ornata has been 

 attached. The species in question was exhibited by Messrs. James 

 Veitch & Sons at the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society on 

 August 31, and received an Award of Merit. The history of it is as 

 follows : — In August 1906 Messrs. Veitch sent a plant of it to Kew for 

 name, with the information that it was raised from seed collected by 

 Mr. E. H. Wilson near Tatienlu, West China, at an elevation of 12,000 

 feet. It was identified with dried specimens collected by Pere Soulie in 

 the same region and described by Franchet (Bull. Soc. Bot. France, 

 vol. xliii, p. 493), and named Gentiana ornata, var. ohtusifolia. With 

 all the material before me, I have no hesitation in accepting the identi- 

 fication ; but I cannot agree in leaving it as a variety of G. ornata. 



