Gentiana. GENTIAN ACE.E. 481 



3. GENTIANA, Linn. GENTIAN. 



Calyx 4-5-cleft or toothed. Corolla 4-5-lobed, funnelform, campanulate, or 

 sometimes salverform, often with plaited and toothed folds in the sinuses, withering- 

 persistent. Stamens included : anthers sometimes cohering in a ring or tube. 

 Style none or very short : stigmas 2, thin and flat, persistent. Capsule septicidal. 

 Seeds very numerous and small, sometimes lining the whole wall of the capsule ; 

 the coat usually but not always loose. Herbs ; with bitter roots, opposite leaves, 

 and terminal or clustered flowers, usually showy, appearing in summer or autumn. 



The typical and the largest genus of the family, comprising 150 species, widely distributed over 

 the cooler regions of the world, moderately represented in Oregon and the Rocky Mountains, as 

 well as in the Atlantic States ; but few reach California, and those are scarce and confined to the 

 Sierra Nevada or to the northern part of the State. 



1. No plaited folds in the sinuses of the corolla: anthers versatile: root in ours 

 annual, or rarely biennial. GENTIAN ELLA. 



* Flowers small : corolla nearly salvershaped, crowned with a fringe of bristles on the 



base of the lobes within. 



1. G. Amarella, Linn., var. acuta, Engelm. From a span to a foot or more in 

 height, slender, simple or paniculately branching : leaves thin ; the larger an inch 

 long and oblong-lanceolate; the lowest obovate or spatulate; uppermost ovate-lan- 

 ceolate : flowers in axillary and terminal clusters, or rarely solitary, forming a narrow 

 panicle : corolla light blue, a quarter to half an inch long ; its 5 short lobes from 

 ovate to oblong-lanceolate, obtuse or becoming acute. G. acuta, Michx., &c. 



In the Sierra Nevada, from Mariposa Co. northward, at 5,000 feet and over ; thence far north- 

 ward and eastward, running into various forms. 



% * Flowers large for the size of the plant ; the parts usually in fours : corolla desti- 

 tute of fringe across the base of the lobes, but their edges sometimes fringed : a row 

 of glands between the bases of the filaments : capsule stipitate. 



2. Gr. simplex, Gray. Stem 2 to 10 inches high from a small and slender 

 annual root, simple, bearing 2 to 4 pairs of lanceolate or linear-oblong leaves (4 to 9 

 lines long) and a single slender-pedunculate flower : corolla blue, 1 to 1| inches 

 long ; the oblong-spatulate lobes entire or erose-toothed, or rarely with a few bristly 

 teeth low down on the sides : seeds smooth but longitudinally striate, narrow, wing- 

 less when mature, but somewhat cellular-appendaged at each end. Pacif. E. Eep. 

 v. 87, t. 16. 



Higher parts of the Sierra Nevada, in wet ground, from Placer Co. at 8,000 feet (Brewer}, above 

 Summit (E. L. Greene), and Sierra Co. (Lcmmoii) to Klamath Lake in Oregon, Newberry. Between 

 G. barbdlata, Engelm., of the Colorado Kooky Mountains (which is perennial), and depauperate 

 forms of the next ; but the seeds very different, when mature not winged, however, as represented 

 in the figure above cited : they are lanceolate in outline, the nucleus coarsely striate, produced 

 into a thickish cellular base, and at the other end into a more subulate empty tip. 



3. Gr. serrata, Gunner. Stem 3 to 18 inches high from a slender annual root, 

 simple or the larger plants branched from the base, bearing few or several pairs of 

 lanceolate or linear leaves, all narrow at base or the lowest oblanceolate, and termi- 

 nated by a long and naked one-flowered peduncle : corolla light blue, mostly an 

 inch and a half long; the oblong or spatulate-obovate lobes commonly erosely 

 toothed around the summit and often fringed down the sides : seeds oval, wingless, 

 the close coat rough with minute projecting scales. (Fl. Dan. t. 317) Fl. Norveg. 

 101, t. 2, fig. 3-5 (1766); Fries, Summ. Scand. 190. G. detonsa, Eottb. Act. 

 Hafn. x. 254, t. 1, fig. 3 ; Grisebach, Gent. & in Hook. Fl. ii. 64, &c. G. brachy- 

 petala, Bunge, Consp. Gent. 225, t. 11, fig. 3. 



Var. holopetala, Gray. Lobes of the corolla rather broad and short, entire or 

 obscurely erose-denticulate round the summit : seeds as in the frinired form. 



