Gentiana. | L. GENTIANACER. 303 
short that the flowers appear sessile on the tufts of leaves, sometimes 
1 or 2 inches long, bearing 1 or 2 pairs of small leaves, and a beautiful 
bright-blue terminal flower. Calyx very angular, with lanceolate teeth or 
lobes. Corolla-tube cylindrical, nearly an inch long; the limb broad and 
spreading, with 5 ovate lobes, and smaller 2-cleft ones between them, 
One of the most common species, in mountain pastures, in central and 
southern Europe to the Caucasus and the Altai, but scarcely extending into 
northern Germany. Rare in Britain, apparently confined to a few localities 
in northern England and western Ireland. 1. spring or early summer. 
3. G. nivalis, Linn. (fig. 677). Small Gentian.—A slender, erect, 
leafy annual, sometimes single-flowered and only an inch high, but more 
frequently 2 to 4 inches high and more or less branched; each branch 
bearing a single blue flower, much like that of G. verna, but considerably 
smaller. The tube of the corolla is but little more than 6 lines long, and 
the lobes of the limb not 2 lines, broadly ovate and pointed, with very 
small 2-cleft ones between them. 
A high alpine plant, not uncommon in the higher mountain-ranges of 
central Europe as well as in the extreme north, but not recorded with any 
certainty as extending into central Asia. Very rare in Britain, and only ona 
few of the higher Scotch mountains. 7. summer. 
4, G. Amarella, Linn. (fig. 678). Autumn Gentian.—An erect, 
much-branched annual, 3 or 4 inches to near a foot high, often assuming 
a livid-green or purplish tinge. Leaves ovate or lanceolate; the flowers 
numerous, sometimes much crowded, sometimes forming a loose, ob- 
long, leafy panicle of a pale purplish-blue, and varying much insize. Calyx 
divided to the middle into 5 narrow-lanceolate, equal or slightly unequal 
lobes. Corolla-tube broad, the limb spreading, divided into 5, rarely 4, 
ovate or oblong lobes, without any smaller ones between them, but furnished 
withinside, at the mouth of the tube, with a fringe of hairs half as long as 
the lobes. 
In rather dry hilly pastures, in Europe and Russian Asia, extending to 
the Arctic Circle, but becoming rather a mountain plant in southern Europe. 
Diffused over the greater part of Britain. Fl. end of summer and autumn. 
The flowers (including the limb) vary with us from 6 to 9 lines in length, 
more rarely attaining an inch, whilst in some Continental specimens they 
are sometimes yet longer. | 
LG. germanica, Willd., is a stout, large-flowered variety with unequal 
calyx lobes and shorter corolla-tube; it is confined to England. Another 
variety, G‘. uliginosa, Willd., has 4-merous flowers. | 
5. G. campestris, Linn. (fig. 679). Field Gentian.—An erect annual, 
much resembling at first sight G. Amarella, but usually rather stouter, 
more branched, and with more crowded leaves and flowers, though seldom 
above 6 inches high: and it is easily known by the parts of the flower 
being in fours, not in fives, and by two of the lobes of the calyx being 
broadly ovate, overlapping the two other narrow ones, The blue fringe of 
the mouth of the corolla is very conspicuous. 
In open pastures, and commons, chiefly in limestone districts, in central 
and northern Europe, but not recorded from the Caucasus or eastward of 
the Ural. More frequent in Britain than the last species. FV. autumn. 
