GENTIAN FAMILY. Genttanaceae. 



lobes of the corolla (rarely they are appreciably shorter). 



The style is about half-cleft. 1-2 feet high. Marshes. 



Nantucket, Mass. to N. J. , south to Fla. and La. 



The largest-flowered and most beautiful 

 Large Marsh 

 Pink member of the genus. The basal leaves 



Sobbatia blunt-tipped and tapering toward the base, 



chloroides the upper light green leaves diminishing 



Crimson-pink to i ance -shape and linear. The few crim- 

 July-August . , a . . 



son-pink flowers are nearly two inches 



broad, with generally ten obovate corolla lobes (an equal 

 number of linear calyx lobes), each marked with a 

 three-pointed ochre-edged, green-yellow base which 

 contributes to the beauty of the central star-figure of 

 the flower ; the stamens are golden yellow, and the style 

 is deeply two-cleft. The flower is visited most fre- 

 quently by bees and the flies of the genus Syrphidce. 

 The wiry stems, simple or branching very little, are 1-2 

 feet high. Rarely the flowers are white. On sandy 

 margins of brackish ponds from Mass. to Fla. and Ala., 

 near the coast. 



Fringed The most famous member of the beauti- 



(ientian ful Gentian group, remarkable not so 



< rrini'ta ia mUCh f ° r itS blUe COl ° r aS f ° r the delicate ' 



Pale violet- misty quality of that color, and the ex- 

 blue pressiveness of the flower-form. The 

 September- plant is an annual with a leafy, perpen- 

 October dicular , branched stem , the branches erect, 

 somewhat four-angled, and each bearing a single ter- 

 minal flower. The flower is deep vase-shaped with four 

 rounded, light violet-blue lobes deeply fringed and 

 spreading horizontally only in the sunshine ; the color 

 varies from pale to deep violet-blue, with occasionally a 

 ruddy tinge, but never with a suspicion of true blue, 

 though lines of a deeper blue-violet appear on the outer 

 surface of the corolla. The large four-pointed calyx is 

 four-sided, and generally a bronzy, yellow-green. The 

 yellow-green leaves are ovate-lance-shaped or narrower, 

 and they are conspicuously opposite. 1-3 feet high. In 

 low moist ground from Me. to the Daks. , south to Iowa, 

 and in the mountains of Ga. 



356 



