THE GENTIANS 297 



of animals, which won't run on all 4s with plants, for that 

 New Zealand won't make a Botanical province. But the 

 more I try, the more difficult I find it to limit Bot. provinces 

 at all — there are only two — land and sea ! 



I said something about Gentiana being one of many 

 genera established on a few heterogeneous materials, and 

 which grew by the accession of new matter to the various 

 salient points. A ' Gen. Plant.,' reviewing genera as wholes, 

 should, if it could, have broken such up. I do not remember 

 what else I may have said. 



To the Same 



Sept. 25, 1887. 



The retroversion of the anthers in Gentiana was first 

 described by myself in the ' Flora Antarctica,' as character- 

 istic of the Southern species. It does not occur in all the 

 genus, and it is now necessary to correct the anthers' charac- 

 ters with the others of your groups. If I remember aright, 

 some dehisce when still ' introrsum spectantes,' others 

 not till after reversion — depending on the form of the 

 Corolla. 



As far as I can remember, all the gamopetalous Corollas 

 are polypetalous (whether thalamifloral or calycifloral) 

 in the earliest state — certainly very many are. I think 

 Payer * so represents a great many in his ' Organogenic' 



Later, when his old friend had settled down in the bracing 

 air of Eastbourne, to his regret that it was not in the pinewoods 

 of Sunningdale near the Camp, he fostered this new taste for 

 botany by sending him plants for his newly made garden, 

 some in particular with the bantering remark that as they do 

 well on any neglected dry rockwork, they should succeed under 

 his tender cares ! 



1 Jean Baptiste Payer (1818-1860), Membre de l'lnstitut (Acad, des 

 Sciences) ; Prof, de Bot. a la Faculte des Sciences de Paris et a l'Ecole Normale 

 Superieure. Author of Traiti d'Organogenie Comparie de la Fleur, published 

 1857. 



