88 AS CALIFORNIA FLOWERS GROW 



seems to have found that each petal is too broad. 

 She does not wish to trim them off nor yet to spread 

 them out and leave an easy entrance for visitors; so 

 she plaits the extra material into folds until each 

 lobe stands out distinctly, just as a dressmaker plaits 

 extra material into folds to make a skirt hang prop- 

 erly. Perhaps in the coming centuries, Gentian 

 will absorb these folds, or perhaps she will modify 

 them into some fantastic form; but at present she 

 seems proud of them and calls attention to them b\ 

 waving on their tops several slender bristles. Of 

 course, these little appendages stir in each breath of 

 air and catch the eye of the butterfly. 



Being overgenerous in corolla cloth, Gentian 

 economizes in other lines. She has a very short 

 style, so that the two spreading lobes of the stigma 

 are closely annexed to the ovary. You generally see 

 small bugs around the Gentian. Probably she con- 

 cocts a special dish to their liking so that they will 

 creep down her tube to the waiting stigma. The 

 five stamens, too, have comparatively short fila- 

 ments, their heads not coming to the top of the 

 corolla. The filaments are joined to the petals just 

 at the bottom of the folds. An insect, in passing 

 down the plaits or in returning up them, will be 

 sure to wriggle enough to disturb the stamens and 

 have the anthers empty their contents on him. 



Because Gentian blooms late in August and in 



