NAT. ORDER. — GENTIANE^. 
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mountainous regions of Europe, Asia, and America. They are 
mostly dwarf herbaceous plants, with deep blue, yellow, or white 
flowers, the former color prevailing. They are all pretty and most 
of them beautiful in the highest degree, but with few exceptions, 
they are impatient of cultivation. The species are numerous, but 
mostly valuable as ornaments, rather than their utility in medicine. 
The following are the varieties cultivated and used in medicine. 
Gentiana Cutea. Yellow Gentian. This has a thick root, of a 
yellowish brown color, and a very bitter taste, the lower leaves are 
petioled, oblong-ovate, a little pointed, stiff, yellowish green, having 
five large veins on the back, and plaited ; the stem three or four 
feet high or more, with a pair of leaves at each joint, sessile or almost 
embracing, of the same form with the lower ones, but diminishing 
gradually to the top ; the flowers are in whorls at the upper joints. 
This is a native of Switzerland, and produces its flowers in June 
and July. 
Gentiana punctata. Spotted-flowered Gentian. This plant has 
the leaves ovate, elongated, and strict ; the calyxes shallow, and in 
form of a basin, the calycine teeth narrow, sharp, and not very leafy ; 
the corolla is of a papery substance, extremely thin, of a dull and 
very pale greenish straw-color, with very minute dots thickly and 
irregularly scattered over it ; the segments of the border are most 
generally seven, sometimes eight, but very seldom six, always shor- 
ter, narrower, contiguous, rounded, blunt, without any auricles at 
the base ; and finally the bell part of the corolla is blunter and 
almost the same over the whole bell. It is a native of Lower 
Canada and is found in some parts of Vermont and New Hampshire. 
Gentiana asclepiadea. Swallow- wort-leaved Gentian. This plant 
has the stem upright, nearly a foot in height ; the leaves smooth, 
about two inches long, and three quarters of an inch broad at the 
base, embracing there, and ending in an acute point ; they are of a 
fine, beautiful green, have five longitudinal veins, joining at both 
ends, but diverging in the middle, and diminish in size as they are 
