GENTIANELLA 217 



with its brilliant stars. The centre of each flower, 

 when we look directly down upon it, we see to be 

 pure white. The rather leathery leaves form dense 

 rosettes on the ground, and from these rise the 

 numerous flower-stems, rarely more than two or 

 three inches high, and each bearing on its summit 

 a single flower. The plant thrives best on moist 

 loamy or peaty soil, and we must give it abundance 

 of water and full exposure to the sunlight. 



The companion flower on our Plate is the gentia- 

 nella Gentiana acaulis : this has no claim whatever 

 to be British ; would that it had ! To see this, too, 

 in its native home we must visit the Alpine districts 

 of Europe, though fortunately it is in England 

 most easily cultivated. Here again the leather- 

 textured leaves form a radical rosette. We may 

 sometimes find it without the green dashes in the 

 throat -a variation known as the G. a. Clusii. The 

 flowers, too, occasionally vary to rose-colour or 

 white, but the normal condition of intense blue is 

 all-satisfying. Should the critic, amateur or pro- 

 fessional, suggest that such a foreigner should find 

 no place within the limits that we have imposed 

 upon ourselves, we hasten to protest that all we 

 claim is that our flowers should have pleasant 

 associations to us, things that we have ourselves 

 collected, or that have been the gifts of our friends 

 of like mind with us. We have before us a florist's 

 list of over thirty gentians, and we see in it that 



