Part II. GENTIANA. 217 



GENTIANA k.ChMJA%.—GenHanella. 



A WELL-KNOWN old inhabitant of our gardens — sometimes erro- 

 neously called G. vernd, than which it is a very much larger 

 and stronger plant in all its parts. Its large solitary flowers, two 

 inches long, of the deepest and most lustrous blue, with dotted 

 throat, barely elevated above the low earth-mantling spread 

 of dense leathery leaves, quite distinguish it from any other 

 species worthy of general cultivation. Sometimes the flowers 

 are so abundantly produced that, when fully opened to the sun, 

 they cover the whole plant. The form with the points of the 

 corolla distinctly tipped with white is a very lovely one. The 

 plant is too well known to require further description, and hap- 

 pily, while among the most beautiful of the Gentians, it is very 

 easily cultivated, except on very dry soils. In some places 

 edgings are made of it, and where the plant does well, it should 

 be used in every garden to some extent, as, when in flower, 

 edgings of it are of the most exquisite beauty, and when out of 

 bloom, the masses of little leaves, gathered into compact rosettes, 

 form a very dwarf and firm edging, peculiarly appropriate for 

 margining beds, or a small garden devoted to interesting or rare 

 alpine or herbaceous plants. It is at home on a rockwork, 

 where there are good masses of moist loam into which it can 

 root, and it is particularly well suited for those spots of de-„ 

 pressed rockwork where the stone is suggested here and there 

 rather than exposed. It may be successfully grown in pots, and 

 that would be worth the trouble where the plant would not grow 

 in the open air from a very dry soil or any other cause.' It is 

 sometimes sold in Covent Garden in pots when in flower in 

 spring, and is readily propagated by division, and also by seeds ; 

 but these are so small and so slow in germination that attempt- 

 ing its propagation in this way is never worth the attention of 

 amateurs. It is abundant in many parts of the Alps and Py- 

 renees. With us the flowers open in April and May, but in its 

 native region their opening is regulated by position, somewhat 

 like those of the vernal Gentian. . The traveller leaving England 

 in early June, who has seen the Gentianella in flower in British 

 gardens in April, may meet with it not yet open in descend- 

 ing one of the mountains of Savoy, though lower down he will 

 find it passed out of flower and in fruit. No garden should 

 be without such an easily grown plant, so attractive from its 

 associations as well as its greai beauty. 



