FRINGED GENTIAN 
Gentiana crinita Froelich 
Fringed gentian is a plant always surrounded with sentiment, 
which is reflected in Bryant’s lines: 
Thou waitest late, and comest alone 
When woods are bare and birds have flown, 
And frosts and shortening days portend 
The aged year is near his end. 
Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
Look through its fringes to the sky, 
Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall 
A flower from its cerulean wall. 
In some years the fringed gentian may be found growing plenti- 
fully in a given locality, but the next season it may be sought in vain 
inthe same spot. The fact that the plant is a biennial, flowering only in 
its second season, sometimes accounts for this,although in some places 
other individuals come into bloom in the in-between yeats. The seeds, 
although numerous, are very small and light and easily washed away 
by tain or blown about by the wind. There are seven hundred mem- 
bers of the Gentian Family, most of them found in temperate and 
atctic regions, although many others grow in the higher mountains 
of tropical countries. The name is derived from that of King Gentius 
of Illyria. | 
Fringed gentian has a wide range, from the mountains of Georgia 
to Quebec and South Dakota. 
The flowers sketched were obtained near Mount Kisco, New York. 
PLATE 336 
