ON GENTIANA GERMANTOA. 67 
characters to separate the plants. | I hope also that some of our acute 
nglish observers will turn their attention to it, and record the results 
at which they may arrive. The object that we all have in view is the 
discovery of the truth, and, so that that is diséeivered, it matters not 
who is right and. who is wrong. 
The following are extracts from Dr. Grisebach’s letters to Dr. See- 
mann :— 
ngen, September 17, 1863. 
he plant which you have figured (Plate ye is Gentiana Germanica, so 
widely diffused, and almost daily observed by me in the Styrian Alps during a 
‘recent tour. Gentiana Amarella (uliginosa, Willd.) is an Eastern v sae, pro- 
-bably not found in England, with a sessile capsule. The principal forms of @. 
Germanica differ in the æstivation of the corolla in a remarkable degree from 
the character of the Order. (Conf. my and Schenk's ‘ Iter Hungaricum,’ p. 331, 
in Wiegmann’s ‘ Archiv für Naturkunde,’ 1852.) Transitions between G 
-Germanica and G. Amarelia I have never seen, but I have found hybrids He: 
tween G. campestris and @. Germanica. G.Germanica grows chiefly in dry 
ealeareous soil; G. Amarella in swampy meadows, principally in the Russian, 
and sporadically in the Baltic plains. 
! Seeing that Dr. Grisebach doubted the existence of the true G. Ama- 
rella in England, Dr. Seemann sent him a specimen collected by the 
‘Rev: We W. Newbould in EEA and obtained the following 
are E 
üttingen, January 18, 186 
The Gentiana you sent is really the true G. Amarella, phish erige was 
known to me only from Scotland, not from England. But as I may have al- 
"ready told you, the chief character does reside, according to my obit, not in 
| the estivation (remarkable as in the common form of G. Germanica it may be), 
but. in the formation of the base of the capsule, as you will see from the en- 
closed. specimens of two German forms. The slender carpophorum of G. Ger- 
manica and obtusifolia (destitute as it is of seed), does not exist in your En- 
: Rs G. Amarella (conf. Reichb. Icon. Germ, in vol. xvii. t. 5 a 
— t ight porket 5 Super" to giro figures of the réinérkable detifiich of 
aids a e chara ater and 
? 
„not be used for generic purposes, _In writing my memoir on Gentianacee in 
De Candolle's * Prodromus,' I was aware - this distinction in G. Germanica and 
Caueasica, without, however, interpreting it correctly. Afterwards (‘Iter Hun- 
"'gari¢um, a Aa A T ái tibet carefully described the estivation of G. Germanica, an 
pora 6. sapian (which has the S ages contorta is as well as 
as atinet aneries on aftioation 
But as the other distinctions of these forms are not constant, and I eai seen 
cases where in the same individual the two different sestivations occur, Iam in- 
“clined to think 1 my original opinion the correct one. I fancy E r emember (but 
~ have unfortunately no written record of it) that in Q! Germanica ep terminal 
F 
