42 FLOWERS OF THE HILLS AND DRY PLACES 



are lance-shaped and hold water absorbed by club-shaped hairs. The 

 branches are shorter than the joints. The plant is many-flowered. 

 The sap is bitter and this may preserve the flower from being browsed 

 by animals. 



The flowers are purplish-blue, opening in the sun, and have a 

 purplish stalk. The corolla is salver -shaped, 5-cleft, bearded, with 

 lance-shaped segments, fringed in the throat. The stamens lie in the 

 tube-forming ridges, and thus make 4 or 5 tubes. 



This Gentian is about 6 in. in height. It is in flower between 

 August and September. The plant is perennial and propagated by 

 seeds. 



The flowers are homogamous, anthers and pistil ripening together, 

 but the style is longer than the anthers, so that an insect touches the 

 stigma first. The honey, accessible to humble bees and Lepidoptera, 

 is secreted by five green, fleshy glands at the base of the corolla or 

 ovary, alternate with the stamens. The honey is protected from rain by 

 the closing of the flower in dull weather. Long erect hairs inside the 

 corolla protect the honey from flies where the tube and limb meet. The 

 tube also contracts. The former is 16-18 mm. long, and 6 mm. wide, 

 allowing an insect to insert its whole head and reach the honey with 

 a proboscis of 10-12 mm. The anthers open when the flower opens, 

 and turn the pollen- bearing side (turned outside in bud) inwards or 

 upwards, so that the bee's head touches it. The style has two terminal 

 stigmatic lobes, already expanded beyond the anthers and papillose. 

 When insects visit the flower it cannot be self-pollinated, as if the 

 insect touches the stigma first it cross-pollinates the plant. After the 

 pollen is shed the anthers are level with the anther-stalks and close 

 to the style. Autumn Gentian is visited by a humble bee, Bombus 

 silvarum. 



The capsule splits up, and breaks up into parts containing numerous 

 seeds, which are dispersed around the parent plant. 



Like other heath-plants this Gentian is a humus-loving plant, and 

 requires a humus soil. 



A cluster-cup fungus, Puccinia gentians, attacks the leaves. 



Gentiana, Pliny, is derived from Gentius, King of Illyria, who is said 

 to have first discovered it. Amarella, Linnaeus, is from amarus, bitter. 



Baldemoyne, Balclmoney, Bitterwort, Feld-wood, Felwort, Field 

 Wort, are some of its names. Coles says of Felwort that it is a 

 " mongrel word mixed of Latine and English together ". The roots 

 are bitter, used as an astringent. The Gentians are cultivated and 

 grow in light, but rich, soil. 



