GENTIANA VERNA. 
SPRING GENTIAN. 
Class Order. 
PENTANDRIA. DIGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
GENTIANEiE. 
Native of 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration. 
Cultivated 
Britain. 
3 inches. 
April. 
Perennial . 
in 1596. 
No. 179. 
Gentiana, a name given after Gentius, king of 
Illyria, who lived about two centuries before the 
birth of Christ. Verna, from the Latin ver, the 
spring, in allusion to the season of its flowering. 
This beautiful little vernal gem has been found 
wild, according to Withering, in the county of Dur- 
ham, particularly in Teesdale Forest, and also in 
Westmoreland. It should be classed amongst the 
more rare British plants, and may be considered as 
legitimately belonging to the mountainous provinces 
of a more southern latitude, as the Pyrenees, Swit- 
zerland, and some parts of Germany. 
The principal error in the cultivation of this little 
plant appears to consist in paying it too much at- 
tention. We have seen it succeed, to admiration, 
in a retentive soil, rather shady and moist, where 
it has remained undisturbed, and the soil acquired 
a clothing of liverwort, in consequence of having had 
no acquaintance with the gardener’s rake or hoe. 
It appears sufficient that the soil about it be kept 
clear of such weeds as are taller than the plant itself, 
and that it be completely free from the dripping of 
trees and shrubs. 
TIort. Kew. 2, v. 2, 112. 
