Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 267 



FRINGED GENTIAN (Gentiana crinita), because 

 of its exquisite beauty and comparative rarity, is 

 one of the most highly prized of our wild flowers. 

 Surely it needs no introduction to our readers for has 

 not Bryant immortalized it in his verse: 

 "Thou waitest late, and com'st alone 

 When woods are bare and birds have flown, 

 And frosts and shortening days portend 

 The aged year is near his end." 

 "Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 

 Look through its fringes to the sky, 

 Blueblue as if that sky let fall 

 A flower from its cerulean wall." 

 The Fringed Gentian is rather a fickle plant; we 

 may find it in a certain locality one year and then 

 search in vain for it for the next few years. It is 

 an annual and, unless the seed is properly set and 

 conditions favorable, we will fail to find it next year 

 even though it be abundant in certain places this. 

 The stem is stout, stiff and branching, each branch 

 being erect and terminating in a bud. The yellow- 

 green leaves are ovate-lanceolate, seated oppositely 

 on the stem. 



The calyx is angular, has four sharp points and 

 is a bronze-green in color. During September and 

 October we may find these blossoms fully expanded, 

 delicate, vase-shaped creations with four spreading 

 deeply-fringed lobes bearing no resemblence in shape 

 or form to any other American species. The color 

 is a violet-blue, the color that is most attractive to 

 bumblebees, and it is to these insects that the flow- 

 er is indebted for the setting of its seed. The anth- 

 ers mature before the stigma is developed so that 

 self-fertilization is impossible. The flowers are wide 

 open only during sunshine, furling in their peculiar 

 twisted manner on cloudy days and at night. In 

 moist woods from Me. to Minn, and southwards. 



