BLUE AND PURPLE 



FRINGED GENTIAN. 



Gentiana crinita. Gentian Family. 



Stem. One to two feet high. Leaves. Opposite, lance-shaped or nar- 

 rowly oval. Flowers. Blue, large. Calyx. Four-cleft, the lobes unequal. 

 Corolla. Funnel-form, with four fringed, spreading lobes. Stamens. Four. 

 Pistil. One, with two stigmas. 



In late September when we have almost ceased to hope for 

 new flowers we are in luck if we chance upon this 



blossom bright with autumn dew 

 whose 



sweet and quiet eye 



Looks through its fringes to the sky, 

 Blue blue as if that sky let fall, 

 A flower from its cerulean wall ; * 



for the fringed gentian is fickle in its habits, and the fact that we 

 have located it one season does not mean that we will find it in 

 the same place the following year ; being a biennial, with seeds 

 that are easily washed away, it is apt to change its haunts from 

 time to time. So our search for this plant is always attended 

 with the charm of uncertainty. Once having ferreted out its 

 new abiding-place, however, we can satiate ourselves with its 

 loveliness, which it usually lavishes unstintingly upon the moist 

 meadows which it has elected to honor. 



Thoreau describes its color as "such a dark blue ! surpassing 

 that of the male bluebird's back ! " My experience has been 

 that the flowers which grow in the shade are of a clear pure 

 azure, " Heaven's own blue," as Bryant claims; while those 

 which are found in open, sunny meadows may be justly said to 

 vie with the back of the male bluebird. If the season has been 

 a mild one we shall perhaps find a few blossoms lingering into 

 November, but the plant is probably blighted by a severe frost, 

 although Miss Emily Dickinson's little poem voices another 



opinion : 



. . And mockery was still. 



But just before the snows The frosts were her condition : 



There came a purple creature The Tyrian would not come 



That ravished all the hill : Until the North evoked it, 



And Summer hid her forehead, " Creator ! shall I bloom ? " 



* Bryant. 



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