PARK AND CEMETERY. 
199. 
Getitiana has 180 species scattered over the 
world from the Artie regions to the cool mountain 
tops of the tropics. They are very generally 
treated as 
“Alpines” in 
Europe but 
are so little 
attempted to 
be grown in 
the states 
that I doubt 
whether I 
can write 
anything 
useful about 
them. They 
are common- 
ly di V i d e d 
into two sec- 
tions, Gen- 
t i a n e 1 1 a 
whose char 
acters may 
be found in 
the books of 
the botanists, 
GENFIAXA ANDREWSII.- Vick's Magazine. , i • 1 
* and w h 1 c n 
has a number of beautiful annual species; and Pneu- 
monanthe which also has both annual and perennial 
kinds. I do not mention biennials for they need an- 
unal sowing. Always take care to procure Gentian 
seed as soon as ripe and sow it at once. Then the 
best gardeners will learn every scrap of information 
available as to the natural habitat and climatal re- 
quirements of individual species These are often 
very different in such a widely distributed genus. 
Even from thesame locality some grow. in sphagnum 
bogs, and others on almost bare rocks, and within 
a little distance a beautiful species may be found in 
pastures or growing on roadsides. 
Again the same species may be constitutionally 
different in various localities. G. acaulis var. an- 
gustifolia from bare rock on the Swiss Alps would 
scarcely stand the same treatment as the roadside 
G. acaulis from the northern plains. I would even 
doubt if G. pneumonantlie collected in gross 18 
inch specimens at the foot of the Alps, and little 3 
inch midgets from the bogs of northern England 
would thrive happily side by side. After all how- 
ever there is nothing for such things but a trial, 
and that trial for very many of the species must be 
at a great elevation on the mountains, or far away 
to the north. There is a great range of color and 
size and form in these beautiful plants. G. lutea 
is yellow, 4 feet high at times, with flat flowers in 
great axillary clusters. G. punctata is yellowish 
and spotted. G. amarella is blue but has a yellowish 
variety and some authors consider the reddish flow- 
ered G. Germanica a variety of amaralla. G. Ba~ 
varica has lighter but similar flowers. G. purpurea,, 
the G. rouge of the French, has dull brownish 
flowers and grows in peat moss. It has also 
blue and white flowers. G. asclepi?edea has 
blue or white flowers and whether growing in 
marsh or woodland is sure to be quite local in dis- 
tribution. It has tubular flowers in a thryse. G. 
ciliata is a fringed gentian similar to G. barbellata 
of the rocky mountains. It is found in alpine pas- 
tures in Switzerland and elsewhere, but does not 
seem to be in cultivation, and in fact but few of the 
fringed gentians are; the rocky mountain form 
mentioned is reckoned a perennial but would almost 
surely be suffocated in the dense atmosphere at sea 
level, even though soil and winter shelter were sim- 
ilar. G. nivalis is a bit of a plant found in Scot- 
land and rarely more than 2 or 3 inches high. The 
species found on the Andes, often near the snow 
line, have a large proportion of reddish flowered 
species among them, but few if any of which are in 
cultivation. As for the 50 or so of North Ameri- 
can species and varieties there are many beautiful 
forms among them, but except G. Andrews!! they 
are rarely in- 
deed seen in 
cultivation, and 
the best of 
European gar- 
dens can rarely 
boast more than 
three or four, 
and about the 
same number ot 
Himalayan 
ones. Such 
beautiful spe- 
cies as G. an- 
gustifolia and 
its white variety 
found inthe low 
pine barrens 
from New Jer- 
sey to Florida 
and many an- 
other on both 
sides of the 
country are 
worth every pains to grow them. I saw a beautiful 
bunch of G. crinita gathered on the edges of moist 
woods within a little distance of Newark, N. ]., on 
the loth of last October. Surely such late flowers 
cannot perfect seeds — can they? The whole sod in 
which this species grows— seeds, grass and all should 
