560 



THE GENTIAN FAMILY. 



Fig. 668. 



In moist, sandy situations, in France, 

 Spain, and here and there in the west 

 Mediterranean region, and has been 

 found in Guernsey by Captain G-osselin. 

 (Bab. Man.) Fl. summer. 



II. ERYTHRiEA. ERYTHR^A. 



Annuals, with pink, or, in some exotic species, pale-yellow flowers, 

 differing from Gentian by their more deeply divided calyx, their de- 

 ciduous style, their anthers, which become more or less spirally twisted 

 after shedding their pollen, and by the capsule in which the seed- 

 bearing edges of the valves meet in the centre, so as to divide it more 

 completely into 2 cells than in most others of the family. 



1. 



Common Erythrsea. Erythrsea Centaurium, Pers. 

 (Fig. 669.) 

 (Chironia, Eng. Eot. t. 417. Centaury.) 



An erect annual, from an inch or two 

 to a foot high, usually much branched 

 in the upper part. Lower leaves usually 

 broadly ovate, forming a spreading ra- 

 dical tuft ; the upper ones in distant 

 pairs, varying from ovate or oblong to 

 narrow-linear. Flowers pink or red, 

 usually numerous, in a terminal, re- 

 peatedly-forked cyme or panicle. Calyx- 

 segments 5, narrow-linear. Corolla with 

 a slender tube, and a spreading, 5-cleft 

 limb. 



In dry pastures, and sandy places, on 

 banks, roadsides, etc. ; widely spread 

 over Europe and central Asia, extending 

 northward to south Sweden. Common 

 in Britain, excepting in the north of 



Fig. 669. 



Scotland, where it is almost confined to 



