Gentiana. GENTIAN ACE.E. 481 



3. GENTIANA, Linn. Gentian". . 



Calyx 4-5-cleft or toothed. Corolla 4-5-lobed, funnelform, campanulate, or 

 sometimes salverform, often with plaited and toothed folds in the sinuses, withering- 

 persistent. Stamens included : anthers sometimes cohering in a ring or tul le. 

 Style none or very short : stigmas 2, thin and flat, persistent. Capsule septicidaL 

 Seeds very numerous and small, sometimes lining the whole wall of the capsule ; 

 the coat usually but not always loose. — Herbs ; with bitter roots, opposite leaves, 

 and terminal or clustered flowers, usually showy, appearing in summer or autumn. 



The typical and the largest genus of the family, comprising 150 species, widely distributed over 

 the cooler regions of the world, moderately represented in Oregon and the Rocky Mountains, as 

 well as in the Atlantic States ; but few reach California, and those are scarce and couliued to the 

 Sierra Nevada or to the northern part of the State. 



§ 1. No plaited folds in the sinuses of the corolla: anthers versatile: root in ours 

 annual, or rarely biennial. — Genttianell.v. 



* Flowers small: corolla nearly salvershaped, crowned with a fringe of bristles on tJte 



base of the lobes within. 



1. G-. Amarella, Linn., var. acuta, Engelm. From a span to a foot or more in 

 height, slender, simple or paniculately branching: leaves thin; the larger an inch 

 long and oblong-L eolate ; the lowest obovate or spatula te; uppermost ovate-lan- 

 ceolate : flowers in axillary and terminal clusters, or rarely solitary, forming a narrow 

 panicle : corolla light blue, a quarter to half an inch lung; its 5 short lobes from 

 ovate to oblong-lanceolate, obtuse or becoming acute. — G. acuta, Miclix., efce. 



In the Siena Nevada, from Mariposa Co. northward, at 5,000 feet and over ; thence far north- 

 ward and eastward, running into various forms. 



* * Flowers large fn- the size of the plant; the parts usually in fours : corolla desti- 

 tute of fringe across tic base of the lobes, but tlieir edges sometimes fringed: a row 

 of glands between t/ie bases of the filaments : capsule stipitate. 



2. G. simplex, < iray. Stem 2 to 10 inches high from a small and slender 

 annual root, .simple, bearing 2 to 1 pairs of lanceolate or linear-oblong leaves (-1 to 9 

 lines long) and a single slender-pedunculate flower : corolla blue I to 1 .'. inches 

 long ; the ohlong-spatul ite lobes entire, or erose-toothed, or rarely with a few bristly 

 teeth low down on the Bides : seeds smooth but longitudinally striate, narrow, wing- 

 less when mature, but somewhat cellular-appendaged at each end — Pacif l; Rep. 

 v. 8?, t. 1G. 



Higher parts of the Sierra Nevada, in wet ground, from PlacerCo feet (Tlmrrr). above 



Sum in it i A'. /.. Or — i, and Sierra Co. I /.< mmon ito Klamath Lake in Oregon, New rry. I:. 

 0. iarbellala, Engelm., of t lie Colorado Rocky Monntains (which is perennial), and depauperato 

 forms of the nexl ; but the Beads very different, when mature not wingc 1, however, as represente I 

 in the figure above cited : they arc lanceolate in outline, tin- nucleus coarsely striate, produced 

 into a thickish cellular bos ■, and at the oth< r i od into a re subulate empty tip. 



3. G. serrata, Gunner, .stem. ,!, 18 inches high from a slender annual root, 



simp] 'the larger plants branched from the base, bearing few or several pairs of 



lanceolate Or linear leaves, all narrow at base or the lowest oblanceolate, and termi- 

 nated by a lung and naked one-flowered peduncle: corolla light blue, mostly an 



inch and a half long; the oblong or spatulate-ol commonly erosely 



toothed around the summit and often fringed down the sides: seeds oval, wingless, 

 the close coat rough with minute projecting scales. - - 1 Tl. Dan. t. -"'17) 11. Norveg. 

 L01, t. 2, fig. 3-5 (1766); fries Summ. Scand. 190. G. det ■. l: ttb. \ I 

 llaln. \. 254, t. 1, fig. 3 ; Grisebach, Gent. & in Hook. El ii. (it. &c, G. bracliy- 

 petala, Bunge, Consp. Gent. 225, t. 11, fig. 3. 



Var. holopetala, Gray. Lobes of the corolla rather broad and short, entin 

 obscurely erose denticulate round the summit : seeds as in the fringed form. 



