396 THE ALPINE FLORA 



length with pairs of opposite leaves and terminated with 

 a spike of dark blue flowers, spotted green, set in the 

 axils of the leaves. In some alpine valleys, on the Via 

 Mala, for example, the flowers are of snowy whiteness. 

 Both forms may be grown in deep, cool soil, under 

 shade. Though impossible to dig up whole any fragment 

 of root property treated will take hold. In the Wisley 

 Garden, of the R. H. S. it grows like weeds! 



G. cruciate. On stony and sunny chalk hills one meets 

 a tufted Gentian with glossy, reticulated leaves, oblong- 

 lanceolate and arranged in cruciform pattern ; the flowers 

 are without peduncle, in a close cluster, the corolla hea- 

 venly blue and cleft into four opposite lobes. Grown with 

 ease in sunny parts of gardens, and, withal, of great beauty. 



G. lutea (PI. LXXX1 ). A magnificent plant of 

 statuesque habit, which stamps all our chalk downs, but 

 particularly in the Jura, with a beauty that few will wish 

 to contest. Mr. Farrer does not agree with this opinion, 

 but there are not many artists who will not join me in 

 my admiration for this fair daughter of our hills. Rambert, 

 too, seems to escape from its attraction. He is pleased 

 to decry its military carriage and assuming of soldier-like 

 airs, to recall the use of the roots in making a spirit 

 strange of taste and strange of perfume, yet for all that 

 wholesome and refreshing, if drunk, as intended, on a 

 glacier ten thousand feet or more above the sea. In his 

 verses a Jffoleson again he mentions this property : 



Mais une herbe des monts, distillee au chalet, 



Herbe que le troupeau dedaigne pour son lait, 



La Gentiane jaune, ou bleue, ou purpurine, 



Recele ce nectar en sa forte racine; 



Elixir de chasseur, tresor des montagnards, 



11 ramene la vie aux levres des vieillards. E. RAMBERT. 



I have elsewhere, on evidence taken from good 

 authorities, alluded to these medicinal properties and 



