368 THE GENTIA.N FAMILY. 



flowers numerous, sometimes much crowded, sometimes forming a loose, 

 oblong, leafy pauit-le of a pale purplish-blue, and varying much in size. Calyx 

 divided to the middle into 5 narrow-lanceolate, equal or shghtly unequal 

 lobes. CoroUa-tube broad, the limb spreading, divided into 5 ovate or ob- 

 long lobes, without any smaller ones between them, but furnished within- 

 side, at the mouth of the tube, with a fringe of hairs half as long as the 

 lobes. 



In ratlier dry hilly pastures, in Europe and Bussian Asia, extending to 

 the Arctic Circle, but becoming rather a mountain plant in southern Europe. 

 Dift'used over the greater part of Britain. Fl. end of summer and autumn. 

 The flowers (including the limb) vary with us from 6 to 9 lines in length, 

 more rarely attaining an inch, wliilst in some Contmental specimens they 

 are sometimes yet longer. 



5. Field Gentian. Gentiana campestris, Linn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 237.) 



An erect annual, much resembhng at first sight the autumn Q., but usually 

 rather stouter, more branched, and more crowded witli leaves and flowers, 

 though seldom above 6 inches high ; and it is easily known by the parts of the 

 flower being in fours, not in fives, and by two of the lobes of the calyx being 

 broadly ovate, overlapping the two other narrow ones. The blue fringe of 

 the mouth of the corolla is very conspicuous. 



In open pastures, and commons, in central and northern Europe, but not 

 recorded from the Caucasus or eastward of the Ural. More frequent in 

 Britain than the last species. Fl. autumn. 



IV. CHIjORA. chlora. 



Glaucous annuals, with yellow flowers. Calyx deeply divided as in 

 FlrythrcBa, but into 8 lobes. CoroUa-tube very short ; the limb spreading, 

 8-lobed. Stamens 8. Style persisting on the capsule as in Gentian. 



Besides the British species, the genus includes one or two south European 

 ones. 



1. Perfoliate Chlora. Chlora perfoliata, Linn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 60. Yellowwort.) 



An erect, rather stiff annual, 2 or 3 inches to a foot high, of a pale glau- 

 cous green. Radical leaves in a spreading tuft, those of the stem m dis- 

 tant pairs, broadly connected together at the base, so that the stem appears 

 to pass through tliem, whence the specific name. Flowers of a bright yel- 

 low, in rather loose terminal cymes ; the corolla nearly rotate. 



In dry pastures, and waste places, generally confined to Ihnestone dis- 

 tricts, in western, central, and southern Europe to the Caucasus. In Bri- 

 tain, limited to the southern and central counties of England and Ireland. 

 Fl. summer. 



V. BUCKBEAN. MENYANTHES. 



A single species, distinguished as a genus from Limnanth by its compound 

 leaves and the capsule opening in 2 valves. 



