NOTEWORTHY PERENNIALS 



95 



Gentiana — Gentian 



TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN 

 Thou blossom bright with Autumn dew, 

 And colored with the Heaven's own blue, 

 That openest, when quiet light 

 Succeeds the keen and frosty night. 



Thou waitest late, and com'st alone, 

 When woods are bare and birds are 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. 

 Blue — blue — as if the sky let fall 

 A flower from its cerulean wall. 



— Wm. Cullen Bryant 



There are almost as many 

 Gentians in poems and books 

 about flowers as there are 

 real Gentians in the woods. 

 Two sorts are to be found 

 by much hunting through 

 United States. They are 

 the Closed Gentian (Gen- 

 tiana Andrewsii) and the 

 Fringed Gentian (G. crin- 

 ita). The Closed Gentian 

 is of interest because it 

 blooms from September to 

 November, but the flowers 

 never open, remaining in 

 large, bud-like fonn. The 

 flower stems are \}/2 feet 

 tall and the purplish blue 

 flowers are borne in clus- 

 ters in the axils of the upper 

 leaves. The plants are 

 found growing on damp 

 hillsides and in meadows. 



The Fringed Gentian is 

 more beautiful and less 

 common. It is the most 

 modest flower of our woods ^^°"^** °'" ^°"*^ *^*"flowers"^ °^ °'"' ''^°'*'* '^''** 



