Page:The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage.djvu/78

 12,689 feet, according to Dr. Royle (Illust. Plant. Himmal. vol. i. pp. 22 and 278). In Ceylon a species has been gathered at between 6000 and 8000 feet of elevation. One species, G. prostrata, H. B. K., has a most extraordinary range, both in longitude and latitude: in southern Europe it inhabits the Carinthian Alps, between 6000 and 9000 feet high; in Asia it has been found on the Altai mountains about lat. N. 52&deg;. Its American range is much more remarkable, it having been gathered on the tops of the Rocky Mountains in lat. 52&eg; N., where they attain an elevation of 15,000-16,000 feet, and on the east side of the Andes of South America in 35&deg; S.: it descends to the level of the sea at Cape Negro; in the Straits of Magalhaens in lat 53&eg; S.; and at Cape Good Hope in Behring's Straits, lat 68&frac12;&deg; N.

The fact of the occurrence, and the great number, of species of Gentiana inhabiting only the more elevated regions of the temperate and tropical zones, and there reaching the snow limit, renders it very remarkable that they should be so proportionally scarce in the higher latitudes both of the northern and southern hemispheres. Generally speaking, the inhabitants of these elevated and cold regions are species of such Natural Orders and genera as compose the mass of the Polar vegetation. It is so to a great extent with certain groups of Ranunculace&aelig;, of Gramine&aelig;, Caryophylle&aelig;, Crucifer&aelig;, Erice&aelig;, &c. &c., but not with Gentiane&aelig;; the proportion which the species of the transition temperate zones bear to the other plants of those regions on the one hand, and to the tropical species of the same genus on the other, is in both cases remarkably small. They are entirely unknown to the Floras of the Polar American Islands; very few inhabit Greenland, Iceland, or the Arctic seashores in the North, or Tasmania, New Zealand, Fuegia, or the Antarctic Islands in the South; and again in other parts of N. Europe and America, or of Chili and Patagonia, they are infinitely less numerous than in the Alps of Middle and South Europe, or the Andes of the equator.

. Fig. 1, flower; fig. 2, corolla; fig. 3, stamens; fig. 4, ovarium:&mdash;all magnified.

1. capitata, Hook. fil.; radice perenni multicauli, caulibus validis ascendentibus foliosis pilosis pilis patentibus, foliis lineari-oblongis v. subspathulatis obtusis supra sericeo-pilosis rarius subhispidis subtus pilis laxioribus glabriusculisve, racemis capitatis densifloris simplicibus v. conjugatis foliis supremis brevioribus, calyce cylindraceo, coroll&aelig; tubo terete calycem &frac12; superante limbi lobis planiusculis rotundatis. (.)

. Lord Auckland's group; on gravelly banks near the margins of the woods, close to high-water mark.

Radix crassa, elongata, 2-3-pollicaris, diametro penn&aelig; anatin&aelig;, horizontalis et descendens, per totam longitudinem fibras crassas, simplices vel fibrillosas emittens, fusco-nigra, ad apicem bi- tri-multiceps, reliquiis foliorum vetustorum subsquamosa. Caules simplices, ascendentes, rarius lateralibus prostratis, apicibus tantum erectis, crassi, 4 unc. ad spithamæam longi, &frac14; unc. lati, teretes, pilosi, pilis mollibus, patentibus, hic illic densis, foliosi. Folia plurima, radicalia, seu caulibus abbreviatis fasciculata, patentia, lineari-oblonga, obtusa rarius basi atteuuata et spathulata, 1&frac12;-2 unc. longa, 4-6 lin. lata, plana, medio uninervia, venis lateralibus reticulatis, obscuris, supra pilosa, pilis appressis, subsericeis, simplicibus, albidis, vetustiora scabriuscula pilis basi globoso-incrassatis, subtus glabra vel parce pilosa, pilis laxis, mollibus, undique patentibus, basi glabra, lata, semi-amplexicaulia, marginibus ciliatis, caulina minora, suberecta v. recurva, basi marginibus membranaceis, suprema plerumque racemum superantia. Racemus terminalis, breviter pedunculatus, solitarius, simplex vel furcatus, interdum conjugatus, in capitulum circinatum volutus, pluriflorus, ebracteatus. Flores conferti, erecti, breviter pedicellati, pedicellis hirsutis sub lineam longis. Calyx elongatus., [sic] cylindraceus, 1&frac12; lin. longus, hirtus, lobis elongatis, lineari-oblongis, obtusis, obscure 3-nerviis. Corolla hypocrateriformis; tubus elongatus, teres,