148 Rhodora Avenel 
That Gray clearly understood the two species is shown not only 
by his treatment in the Synoptical Flora but by the specimens which 
bear the labels inserted by him at that time. Subsequently, however, 
it has become a quite general practise to treat essentially all the large- 
leaved Closed Gentians of New England, northern and central New 
York and adjacent Canada as G. Andrewsii, presumably because of 
their very definitely “closed” corolla, although a few specimens from 
the northern states have been called G. Saponaria. A study of the 
northern material shows, however, that the common plant of New 
England and of many parts of the northern states and adjacent 
Canada is neither G. Andrewsii nor G. Saponaria, but is a distinct 
species combining the foliage-characters of G. Andrewsii with the 
corolla-characters nearly of G. Saponaria. This plant, which is appar- 
ently rare south of the northern states, extends along the mountains 
somewhat locally to North Carolina, occurring there only at the higher 
altitudes (Roan Mountain, etc.). This is the species which was well 
characterized (as Rafinesque’s descriptions go) by Rafinesque as G. 
clausa.|_ Rafinesque’s description was as follows: 
es i . Clausa Raf. Closed Gentian. Stem round smooth, leaves 
ovate lanceolate, acuminate, subtrinerve: flowers verticillate, sessile; 
calix four to six cleft angular, segments foliaceous short: Corolla 
clavate, short, closed 8-10 teeth, internal teeth equally bilobe. On 
the Taconick and Green mountains, flowers blue, half the size of G. 
Saponaria and quite shut. Variety with ternate lanceolate leaves.” 
As above implied G. Andrewsit is a less common plant in New 
England than G. clausa; in fact, its representation in the Gray Her- 
barium and the herbarium of the New England Botanical Club 
indicates that it is extremely local, the only New England material 
found in these herbaria coming from eastern Massachusetts. Whether 
the plant is as local as this herbarium-representation implies of course 
can be determined only by further field-study, but it is significant 
that among the scores of herbarium sheets which have accumulated 
from the New England region Srey all should prove to be 
G. clausa rather than G. Andrew 
Saponaria has been included i in many New England lists but so 
far as the writer can determine this species is essentially a coastal plain 
plant extending northward along the coastal plain to Staten Island 
1 Raf. Med. FI. i. 210 (1828). 
