338 PLANTS OF NEW ZEALAND 



COLOUR IN GENTIANS. 



The flowers of this genus include some of the brightest 

 gems of alpine regions. The corolla differs much in hue in 

 different species, but no finer shades of blue are known than 

 those of G. verna and G. clusii. They surpass in beauty all 

 the blues of lower levels. Kuskin, in his matchless diction, 

 writes of the " Star Gentian in its uncontested queenliness, 

 wholly without similitude." The yellow gentian, with its 

 spires aflame on the crown of an Alpine pass, stirred 

 Matthew Arnold to unwonted admiration 



Indeed, nearly all the species foreign to New Zealand are 

 brilliantly coloured. Of sixteen species found in the Andes 

 and Peru, half are red, four purple, two blue, one yellow, and 

 one alone white. But, as has already been pointed out 

 (Vo Clematis, p. 162), flowers which are brightly tinted 

 elsewhere, are in New Zealand very frequently pure white. 

 When we come to examine the New Zealand species, of which 

 there are about eighteen, we find that they are all, if true to 

 type,, white. Some, occasionally, however, exhibit shades of red, 

 purple, violet, and pale lemon ; but the deep blues, yellows, or 

 purples, so characteristic of the gentian elsewhere, are here 

 unknown. Strangely enough, the most brilliant of our species 

 is Gentiana cerina of the Auckland Islands Like so many 

 other Auckland Island plants (v. PleuropJiyllurri) , it has 

 a depth of hue unknown amongst plants of the same genus on 

 the mainland According to Kirk," it is one of the most 

 beautiful plants in the flora. The corollas vary in colour from 

 a pure waxy white, to white with a vertical stripe, purple, 

 reddish-purple and violet. It is in other respects, also, an 

 extremely variable plant ; and, like most of the gentians, very 

 interesting botanically. 



*Trans., Vol. XXVII. p. 339. 



