GENTIAN OF THE DESART. 
It produces three or four stalks from one 
root, each of about a foot high, and some stalks 
produce two flowers. The flowers are of a 
fine blue colour ; the stalks and leaves green. 
The flowers keep long in their beauty, and 
■the roots live many years. 
This plant is scarce in Pennsylvania: and 
Catesby, in his History of Carolina, has given 
a different species of the Gentian. 
Of the peculiar medicinal virtues of this 
Gentian of the Desart, we are wholly unap- 
prized, though it probably corresponds with 
those of tlic species which it so mucli re- 
sembles. It's rareness may be supposed to 
have prevented it's importation into ii'urope ; 
"where, indeed, the Gentians, of various de- 
scriptions, very sufficiently abound. 
All the modern Knglisli naturalists, who 
mention the Gentian, take notice of a fatal ac- 
cident, whicli happened many years ago, in 
this country, from the unfoitunatc mixture of 
the root of the Henbane, in a ])arccl of the 
Gentian rout, which it externally resembles, 
and 
