Gentiana (Catesbæi), corollis campanulatis ventricosis extus cæruleis, foliis lanceolatis remotis. Walt. Fl. Carolin. 109.
Gentiana (Saponaria), corollis quinquefidis campanulatis ventricosis verticillatis, foliis ovato-lanceolatis trinerviis. Willd. Sp. Pl. 1. 1338.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The empalement.
2.The blossom spread open.
3. The pointal
The beautiful species of Gentiana here represented, does not appear to be noticed either in Willdenow’s edition of Species Plantarum, or the Hortus Kewensis of Mr. Aiton; except by the former of these authors, as being synonymous with G. Saponaria; from which as a species we conceive it distinct: neither do we find it enumerated in Mr. Donn’s Hortus Cantabrigiensis: but it is described by Walter in his Flora Caroliniana, under the name of Catesbæi; and is known in several of the principal gardens in the neighbourhood of London by that appellation; which we have therefore thought it more eligible to adopt, than run any risk of occasioning confusion by applying a new one.
The plant is perennial and herbaceous, a native of Carolina, and is propagated by parting its roots in autumn, or early spring; but requires a moist sheltered situation, and peat earth in the open air, to make it flourish.
It rises with several stems to the height of a foot or upwards: the leaves are opposite, or in threes, remote, lanceolate, stem-clasping, and obscurely three-nerved, with scabrous margins, occasioned by minute, upwardly-directed serrulations, which at the base of the leaf are decurrent, and form four or six roughened lines on the stem: the flowers are irregularly whorled; but the uppermost whorl is by much the largest; each blossom is of a rich deep purple colour, ventricose, and opens very little at the mouth, where it is divided into ten incurving segments, every other of which is of a much paler colour than the rest, broader, unequally bifid, and minutely lacerated: the empalement is five-cleft, and its segments are linear-lance-shaped, with minutely ciliated edges, after the manner of the edges of the leaves.
The living specimen from which our figures were made, was obligingly communicated to us by the Hon. Mr. Irby, of Farnham Royal, Bucks.[Pg 117]
