387 



long, lobes elongated, elliptic-lanceolate, as long as the tube ! (per- 

 haps a monstrosity). Branches elongate, fastigiate, (approaching 7). 

 Under $. Leaves short, obtuse, lobes of calyx abbreviated, (approach- 

 ing 7). Stem slender, 1 -flowered, leaves very short, sub-rotund! — 

 Under 3". Lower leaves rosulate, spathulate, subrotund, (transition to 

 y). Calyx cleft on either side. Corolla 4-cleft. 



Country. — Dry gravelly meadows and pastures, mountains and al- 

 pine situations at a height of from 150 to 6200 feet, in central Europe 

 and the Caucasus. Hab. a. in England, according to a specimen col- 

 lected near Ripon, (Hook.!) Flowers from x^ugust to October. 



Under the name of Gentiana carapestri-germanica, Grisebach also 

 describes a plant which he considers to be a hybrid between G. ger- 

 raanica and G. campestris. The flower is 5-cleft, the calyx having 

 two of its lobes much larger than the rest. 



It will, I think, be considered quite unnecessary for me to give quo- 

 tations from the works of any other continental botanists than those 

 already referred to, who are all intimately connected with the subject 

 under discussion ; — Willdenow from being the original authority for 

 G. gerraanica, Froelich from the full descriptions contained in his Li- 

 bellus of the species of Gentiana known at the time it was written, 

 and Grisebach, from his elaborate Monograph of the whole order, in 

 which work he has devoted considerable space to the illustration of 

 the plants now before us. I am, however, truly gratified in being able 

 to close this part of the enquiry wdth a short extract from the Jifth 

 edition of Hooker's ' British Flora,' published only within the last 

 fortnight. The two plants stand therein as distinct species ; the cha- 

 racters assigned to each being substantially the same as Grisebach's, 

 already given, I need not quote them : the following remarks, under 

 G. germanica, will, however, show that although the opinions of the 

 leai'ned author, in deference perhaps to the high authority of Grise- 

 bach, may have been somewhat modified since the publication of the 

 ' Flora Londinensis,' he evidently considers the question as still open 

 to discussion. 



" la tlie ' Flora Londinensis ' I stated it as my opinion that the G. Amarella and 

 G. germanica were not specifically different. Grisebach, Koch, and others think dif- 

 ferently ; and as the former author has examined and made his remarks on the speci- 

 mens in my herbarium, I have given his characters, and would direct the attention of 

 botanists to the subject. Mr. H. Watson is of opinion that they are but trifling vari- 

 eties of each other. In all iny numerous specimens of G. Amarella, the plant takes a 

 more or less pyramidal form, ami the flowers arc far more numerous, crowded, and 

 considerably smaller than in G. germanica." — Hook. Br. Fl. i. 219. Ed. a, Oct. 1842. 



