Perennial. — Flowers in August. 
Root of many long, cylindrical, whitish fibres. Stem upright, 
a foot or more high, slightly 4-corn£red , smooth ; leafy and simp'e 
below ; panicled above. Leaves about the base of the stem, oppo- 
site, petiolate, egg-shaped or elliptic, quite entire, nerved, smooth, 
from 2 to 4 inches long, and 1 to 2 inches broad ; those on the 
upper part of the stem much smaller, opposite, sessile, elliptic- 
oblong, entire. Panicle upright, terminal, of about 12, sometimes 
more, flowers, on opposite angular stalks (pedicles), with a pair of 
elliptic-oblong, entire bracleas at their base. Calyx purplish, in 
5 awl-shaped segments. Corolla (see fig. 2.) about an inch in 
diameter, of a greyish-purple colour, deeply 5-cleft, its segments 
elliptic, sharp-pointed, dotted with black, with greenish nectaries, 
which are bristly on the edges (see fig. 3, a). Filaments (see fig. 4.) 
5, awl-shaped. Anthers versatile. Germen (see fig. 4.) egg-shaped, 
compressed, often abortive. Styles very short. Capsule surrounded 
with the permanent calyx and corolla, egg-oblong, tapering at each 
end, and shortly 2-beaked at the summit with the spreading stigmas. 
Seeds (see figs. 6 & 7.) numerous, roundish, compressed, with a 
wide membranous margin, rust-coloured, attached to the thickened 
margins of the valves in a double row. — Whole herb quite smooth, 
and very bitter. 
This plant is a native of Germany, Austria, France, Caucasus, 
and Siberia ; but there is some doubt whether it was ever found 
wild in Britain. Old authors considered it a Gentiana, to which it 
is very nearly allied, but it differs from that genus (see t. 185.) in 
the peculiar nectaries, and also in the disposition of the seeds. 
THE WINTER NOSEGAY. 
Flowers, — fresh flowers, — with your fragrance free, 
Have you come in your queenly robes to me 1 
Me have you sought, from your fair retreat, 
With your greeting lips and your dewy feet, 
And the heavenward glance of your radiant eye. 
Like angel-guests from a purer sky ? 
But where did ye hide when the frost came near. 
And your many sisters were pale with fear? 
Where did ye hide, with a cheek as bright 
As gleam’d amid Eden’s vales of light, 
Ere the wiles of the Tempter its bliss had shamed, 
Or the terrible sword o’er its gateway flamed ? 
Flowers. — sweet flowers, — with your words of cheer. 
Thanks to the friend who hath brought you here ; 
For this may her blossoms of varied dye, 
Be the earliest born ’neath the vernal sky ; 
And she be led by their whisper’d love 
go the love of that land where they fade no more. 
Mrs. Sigourney. 
