GENTIANELLA. 75 



family. We have seen this flower employed with excellent 

 effect as an edging, its compact tufts of deep green leaves 

 rendering it a quite respectable plant. Its usual place is 

 the rockery, for which it is so well adapted that if only a 

 score of rock plants are wanted, the gentianella should be 

 one of them. The custom of planting little mites of plants 

 we shall not object to, because the planter must have 

 freedom of action when the purse is appealed to ; but we 

 are bound to say that a small tuft of this beauty is never 

 sufficient for its vindication as the perfection of a rock 

 plant. A few large patches or carpets are required, and it 

 is easy to obtain them by sowing the seeds every year in 

 pans in a frame, and nursing the young plants carefully, 

 remembering also that they are perfectly hardy, and are 

 more in need of protection against drought than against 

 frost or wind or sun. 



The spring gentian, or Gentiana verna, is the proper 

 companion to the gentianella. It will generally thrive in 

 the same soil, and both will sometimes display a vagrant 

 quality in spreading from the comfortable bed prepared for 

 them to the adjoining gravel-walk, in which, if allowed', 

 they will run riot, as if to show how they love to be in 

 contact with stones. The vernal gentian, however, needs 

 a moist, sandy soil, and it is an advantage if smallish 

 pieces of sandstone are mixed with it; but moisture is 

 before all things important, the sure result of dryness at 

 the roots during May and June being the death of the 

 plants. In a soil they like they root deeply, and the 

 stones on the surface check evaporation and help to sustain 

 the plant by the retention of moisture. 



The Bavarian gentian (G. Bavarica) is like the vernal 

 gentian, but has fewer leaves, and the flower-stems are 



