GENTIAN FAMILY 



to seek arbutus or find Fringed Gentian, and although he probably 

 does not go, he wishes that he could. 



'Tis not what man does which exalts him, but what man would do! 



— " Saul," Robert Browning. 



The poets have paid their tribute to the charm and beauty of 

 these blossoms, and the "Mayflower," of Whittier, and the 

 "Fringed Gentian," of Bryant, will live because of 

 the flowers; and the flowers, perhaps, will be better 

 known because of the poems. 



The color of the Fringed Gentian blossom has 

 been the subject of considerable discussion apropos 

 of Bryant's poem. The first stanza speaks of it as 



Colored with the heaven's own blue, 

 and the fourth as 



Blue — ^blue— as if that sky let fall 

 A flower from its cerulean wall. 



Mr. Matthews, on the other hand, is very sure 

 that "the color varies from pale to deep violet- 

 blue, with occasionally a ruddy tinge, but never 

 with a suspicion of true blue, though lines of a 

 deeper blue-violet appear on the outer surface of 

 the corolla." He says what is undoubtedly true 

 that the subtle charm lies in the deUcate misty 

 quality of the color. 



Another interesting species that is sometimes 

 transferred to the wild border is the Closed Gen- 

 tian, Gentiana Andrewsii, which is remarkable for its cylindrical 

 closed corolla. Nature's plan here is evidently self-fertilization. 

 The color of the blossoms is a broken intense violet-blue and 

 the flowers are in clusters either terminal or whorled in the 

 axils of the leaves. This is the most common Gentian of Ohio. 

 To the Gentian Family also belongs the exquisite Sea Pinks, 

 Sabbatia slellaris and Sabbatia gracilis, common on salt meadows 

 along the coast from Maine to Florida. 



346 



Fringed Gentian. 

 Cenlitina crinlta 



