62 On the Rarer Plants of North America. 



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in the recent collections of Mr Drummond, I observed some beautiful speci- 

 mens of this plant from the neighbourhood of St Louis, differing only in 

 their taller and more slender growth, which may be attributed to the situation 

 in which they were procured. 



Gentiana angustifolia, nana. Dry pasture grounds, Tuckerton, New Jersey. 

 The G. angustifolia we first found in the moist woods in the neighbourhood of 

 Quaker Bridge, New Jersey, where it attains the height of 14 inches. Nothing 

 more was seen of this plant till we reached Tuckerton, where it proved abun- 

 dant, and interesting from the circumstance of its clothing a large tract of natu- 

 ral dry pasture ground bordering upon the salt marshes. The greater proportion 

 of the specimens varied from 2 to 4 inches in height, and none exceeded 5 inches. 

 A careful examination of this plant, in the hopes of finding characters to dis- 

 tinguish it from the G. angustifolia of the moist woods, proved fruitless ; the 

 only marked difference being in the stamens, which were much longer. Be- 

 sides its small size, many of the plants were much branched, and had from 1 to 

 5 flowers. The colour of these was exceedingly various, being sometimes 

 perfectly white, and having all shades between white and blue ; whereas, out 

 of many hundred flowering specimens of wood plants, not the slightest devia- 

 tion in tint was perceptible, all being of a beautiful rich blue dotted with 

 yellow. In the dwarf white flowering varieties the dots were green. 



Gentiana barbata ; caule erecto tereti-angulato ramoso, foliis lineari-acumi- 

 natis linearibusve, radicalibus spathulatis, calycis inaequalis laciniis lanceolatis 

 longe acuminatis margine membranaceis, corollse 4-fid8e laciniis antice serratis 

 medio inciso-ciliatis. 



a., sibirica; corollse laciniis apice subintegerrimis, foliis lineari-lanceolatis 

 sensim acuminatis. Gentiana barbata, Irvel, Gent. p. 114. Ledeb. Fl. Alt. 

 v. i. p. 282. Gentiana ciliata, Pall. Fl. Ross, v. ii. p. 101. t. 92. Sims in Bot. 

 Mag. t. 639. 



/S. Broivniana, Hook. MSS. ; corollse laciniis apice evidenter serratis, fo- 

 liis lineari-acuminatis. 



y. Richardsoniana ; corollse laciniis apice evidenter serratis, foliis linearibus 

 obtusis. Gentiana crinita, Rich, in Frankl. 1st Journ. App. ed. 1. p. 734. 

 Gentiana intermedia, Rich, in Frankl. 1st Journ. App. ed. 2. p. 9. (not Sims 

 Bot. Mag. t. 2303.) 



It is the var. /? alone of this plant which we found at Goderich, growing on 

 the banks of the Maitland River, which it adorned with its copious and large 

 pale blue flowers. It is so completely the connecting link between the Asia- 

 tic G. barbata and the G. intermedia of Dr Richardson, that, after a careful 

 comparison with numerous specimens, in all states, in Dr Hooker's herba- 

 rium, we cannot but consider them as slight deviations of one and the same 

 species. The northern Asiatic plant seems to have constantly more obso- 

 lete serratures at the tips of the corolla ; but even there the leaves are liable 

 to vary in form ; a specimen from Kamschatka having them as truly linear and 

 obtuse as any of Dr Richardson's specimens. In our state of the plant, which 

 is exactly the same as the late Dr Todd's specimens in Dr Hooker's herba- 

 rium, the serratures are strong at the apex of the segments of the corolla, 

 but the leaves are gradually attenuated like the Siberian specimens, and they 

 are not more narrow than in some of Professor Ledebeur's specimens from the 

 Altai. This may be considered the most southern appearance of the plant, 

 none having been found farther north than Pentanguishene, on Lake Hu- 

 ron (Dr Todd). The specimens are from 1^ to 2 feet high, and the stems 

 bear from 10 to 14 flowers. The var. y is the most northern, and extends 

 from Canada (Mrs Percival and Mr Sheppard) through the whole woody 

 country, and even to the barren regions on the Mackenzie River (Dr Rich- 

 ardson) ; while Mr Drummond has met with it as far west as Edmonstone 

 House, upon the Saskatchawan. This is usually smaller than our var. 0, but 

 it differs in no other respect, save in the leaves being of equal width from the 

 base to the extremity. It is admirably described by Dr Richardson in the 

 second edition of Franklin's First Journey ; only that the more copious spe- 

 cimens found during the Second Journey, shew that the stem ought to be de- 

 scribed as " ramosus multiflorus," rather than " simplicissimus uniflorus;" a 



