CATALOGUE. 191 
GenTIANA* HuMILIS, Stev. Griseb. in DC. Prod. 9, 106. Engelm. 
Trans. Acad. St Louis, 2, pl. 9, figs. 1-5. Gray, Syn. 120.—Biennial, with 
large, broadly oval, rosulate, white-margined basal leaves, and few or many 
ascending stems of a pale yellowish-green; cauline leaves small, linear- 
oblong; flowers single, terminal; corolla greenish or whitish, 4-6 long, 
tubular, with acute lobes, and short, notched folds; anthers oval, introrse; 
capsule clavate-obovate, on a long stipe, usually much exceeding the corolla; 
seeds oblong. 
Wet, grassy spots in the higher Rocky Mountains; also in Asia. 
The long, protruding capsules (trumpet-shaped when open), together 
with its pale, sickly look, give the little plant a very curious ap- 
_pearance. 
GENTIANA PROsTRATA, Henke; Griseb. 7. c. Engelm. J. ¢. figs. 9-14. 
Gray, Syn. 120.—Annual, small, weak, 1-2’ high, with horizontal or decum- 
bent branches; leaves only 2-3’ long, ovate, green with narrow white 
margins; flowers azure-blue, 4-parted, terminal on the branches, 5-6” long 
(or in luxuriant specimens sometimes larger); lobes ovate-lanceolate; 
appendages half as long, similar or sometimes notched; anthers oval, 
© presence or absence of folds or plaits between the lobes of the corolla and the mode of 
attachment of the anthers to the filament separate the Gentians into two large and very natural sec- 
tions, already recognized by old authors: Gentianell (Bor kl ), Gray, has acorolla without folds and 
the anthers versatile; Pnewmonanthe (Necker), Gray, has a corolla with folds between the lobes and fixed 
closed stigma), open the cells upward, and begin to shed their pollen. Toward evening, the now effete 
anther is turned over backward, and on the next morniug we find it hanging on the back of the fila- 
ment, the notched lower end turned up and the empty cells directed outward. Thus in about twelve 
hours it has described an almost complete circle. In my figures of Gentians in the Transactions of the 
Academy of Saint Louis, vol. 2, pl. 7, 8, 9, and 11, versatile anthers are erroneously represented as turn- 
ing indiscriminately outward or inward. This is a mistake, as the above account of the living action of 
the anthers shows. In the figures of G. humilis and prostrata, pl. 9, the anthers are also figured as ver- 
eatile in that unnatural manner, while in these species they are constantly erect and introrse, as well 
before opening as when effete. 
a monanthe the anthers remain fixed in two forms. In one section, comprising mostly smaller 
plants, with smaller flowers (G. prostrata, verna, Altaica, humilis, utriculosa, etc.), they are introrse. In 
another section, the true perennial large-flowered Pneumonanthes, to which we must add also an annual, 
G@. Douglasiana, and the European G. cruciata, they are ‘extrorse. In the genera Halenia, Pleurogyne, 
Swertia, and Frasera, all represented by plants collected in these expeditions, we find the same arrange- 
ment of versatile anthers as in Gentianella. It therefore seems proper to enumer: ate, first, 
with fixed anthers, and next those with tile anthers, and then, joining them, the other genera with 
similar versatile antheral arrangement. 
