Frasera. GENTIAN ACEJ3. 125 



sessile ; some commonly alternate : inflorescence racemiform or narrowly paniculate, few- 

 many-flowered : flowers 5-merous : sepals narrowly lanceolate : lobes of the corolla (4 to 6 

 lines long) oblong-oyate becoming lanceolate, the base bearing a pair of nectariferous pits 

 which are crested with a fringe. — Engl. Bot. t. 1041; Fl. Dan. t. 2047; Jacq. Fl. Austr. 

 iii. t. 243. — Ours the var. obtusa, Griseb. (S. obtusa, Ledeb.), with obtuser lower leaves and 

 corolla-lobes, but passing into the other and European form. — Rocky Mountains in Colo- 

 rado, Utah, &c, and Alaska. (N. E. Asia to Eu.) 



8. FRASERA, Walt. (John Fraser, of Great Britain, made collections 

 in this country 1785-96, published Walter's Flora Caroliniana.) — Large and 

 stout herbs, or some smaller and more slender ; with single erect stem from a 

 mostly biennial and thick bitter root, verticil late or opposite leaves, the broader 

 ones commonly somewhat nervose, tbyrsoid or paniculate-cymose inflorescence, 

 and copious flowers, produced in summer. Calyx-lobes from linear to ovate. 

 Corolla dull white, yellowish, or bluish, and commonly dark-dotted, mostly of firm 

 texture, not '• deciduous " but marcescent. Flowers seldom, if ever, 5-merous. 

 Species all N. American, and all but one western ; the genus mostly well marked 

 in aspect, but in floral character distinguished from Swertia only by the distinct 

 style ; and this is very short iu F. Parryi and F. thyrsiflora. 



* Leaves marginless : a single round gland upon each corolla-lobe ; no crown at base : capsule (as 

 far as known) strongly flattened parallel with the valves: seeds orbicular, wing-margiced : stem 

 large and stout : sepals narrow, almost the leugth of the corolla. 



F. thyrsiflora, Hook. Stem 2 or 3 feet high : leaves in pairs or threes, oblong or 

 spatulate-obovate, the cauline 3 or 4 inches long : flowers in a dense interrupted thyrsus : 

 sepals subulate-linear (4 lines long) : lobes of the pale blue corolla ovate-oblong, thin, bear- 

 ing the gland near the base : style short and conical, in some flowers hardly any ! — Kew 

 Jour. Bot-. iii. 288, where the flowers are said to be 5-merous ! F. Carolinensis, Hook. Fl. ii. 

 66. Swertia fastigiata, Pursh, Fl. i. 101. — Idaho and interior of Oregon, on the tributaries 

 of the Columbia, Lewis, Douglas, Geyer, Spalding. Rare and little known. Pursh's plant 

 seen in herb. Lambert, where the true station is recorded : " in moist and wet places on the 

 Quamash flats, June 4, 1806," at which date Lewis and Clarke were on the Kooskooskie 

 (now Salmon) River, near which the species was collected by Spalding : the flowers in 

 both 4-merous. Douglas's and Geyer's specimens not seen. 



F. Carolinensis, "Walt. Stem 3 to 8 feet high : leaves mostly in fours, 12 to 4 inches 

 long ; the radical and lowest spatulate-oblong ; uppermost lanceolate ; those of the ample 

 and open thyrsoid-paniculate inflorescence often only opposite and small or reduced to 

 bracts : flowers mostly slender-pedicelled : sepals narrowly lanceolate : corolla ochroleucous 

 and with brownish-purple dots ; its broadly oblong lobes bearing the large and long- 

 fringed gland below the middle : style slender-subulate : stigma of 2 oval lobes. — Car. 87 ; 

 Torr. Fl. 187, & Fl. N. T. ii. 89. F. Wakeri, Micbx. Fl. i. 97 ; Bart. Med. ii. t. 35. Swertia 

 difformis, L. herb., not Spec. — Rich dry soil, W. New York to Wisconsin and Georgia. 

 Thick bitter root has been used as a tonic, under the name of American Columbo. 



* # Leaves marginless : a pair of oblong glands on each corolla-lobe and a separate crown below 

 them: capsule compressed contrary to the deep-boatshaped or almost conduplicate valves: seeds 

 oblong, flat, margined : sepals narrow-linear, equalling the corolla. 



F. speciosa, Dougl. Stem stout, 2 to 5 feet high, very leafy : leaves in fours and sixes, 

 nervose ; the radical and lowest cauline obovate or oblong, 6 to 10 inches long ; the upper 

 lanceolate and at length linear : flowers very numerous in a long leafy thyrsus : the slender 

 pedicels and peduncles at length strict : lobes of the greenish-white or barely bluish and 

 dark-dotted corolla oval-oblong, acutish, half inch long, bearing the pair of contiguous and 

 densely long-fringed glands about the middle, and a distant transversely inserted and seta- 

 ceously multifid scalelike crown near the base : usually some minute setas between the 

 bases of the filaments: style subulate, shorter than the ovary. — Griseb. Gent. 329, in 

 Hook. Fl. ii. 66, t. 153, & DC. 1. c. 131 ; Watson, Bot. King, 279; Gray, Bot. Calif, i. 484. 

 Tessaranthium radiatum, Kellogg, Proc. Acad. Calif, ii. 142. — In the mountains, Wyoming 

 to Oregon, and south to New Mexico and the Sierra Nevada of California. 



