WILD FLOWERS BLUE AND PURPLE 



national flower, and it has also been immortalized in 

 our literature since Bryant wrote : 



"Thou waitest late and cometh alone, 

 When woods are bare and birds are flown, 

 And frosts and shortening days portend 

 The aged year is near his end." 



Artists consider that the blue of the Gentian is the 

 nearest approach to the colour of the sky. The leafy, 

 angled, and usually branching stalk is smooth and 

 grooved, and grows annually from one to three feet 

 high. The clasping leaves have a heart-shaped base 

 and a long, tapering point. They are thin and toothless 

 and are set upon the stalk in alternating, opposite 

 pairs. There is something classical about the deep, 

 vase-shaped corolla of the erect, bright blue flowers. 

 They are mostly four-parted, and about two inches 

 high. The four rounded and spreading lobes are 

 finely fringed around the top edge, and are sensitive 

 to the sunlight. They open and close with a twisting 

 gesture at night, or on dull days. Each of the four- 

 pointed parts of the calyx is ridged. The solitary 

 flowers are borne on the tips of long and short branches, 

 several of which are so closely parallel as to form a 

 loose, upright group. They are found from Quebec to 

 Minnesota, and south to Georgia and Iowa. 



CLOSED, OR BOTTLE GENTIAN 



Gentiana Andrewsii. Gentian Family. 



The singular flowers of the Closed Gentian have a 

 curious attraction because they never open. They are 



34$ 



